


Forgive me, Father ...

by sabby1



Series: Sins and Consequence [2]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Blood, Cheating, Dark Fantasy, Doppelganger, F/M, Hallucinations, Happy Ending, M/M, Mind-un-wipe, Mindfuck, Multi, Post-Canon, Purple Prose, Quests, Sequel, Smut, Torture, Trials
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-06-30 12:13:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 23
Words: 50,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19852942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabby1/pseuds/sabby1
Summary: Sequel to We F***** Up Souls.When a careless comment by Isabelle brings back memories that Raphael's Encanto wiped out over a year ago, Simon is pissed.He decides to confront the vampire turned mundane seminary scholar, but things never go Simon's way, and, just when he thinks he is back in control, there is a knife at his throat and Raphael's evil doppelganger is whisking him away to parts unknown.Aka the short sequel that somehow ended up as Shadowhunters goes Princess Bride.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to my previous Shadowhunter-verse fic We F*****d Up Souls. It's also a multi-chapter project that somehow stumbled upon an actual plot, so there will be stuff happening that is not directly related to the relationships the characters are in. Also, this one is going to get very, very dark. I'll add more tags and warnings as the story develops. 
> 
> Also, it's possible to love more than one person, in more than one way, so please mind all the relationship tags at the top. 
> 
> Edit 08/09/2019: This story is complete with 22 chapters and an epilogue. I will continue to post on an every other day basis unless something keeps me. 
> 
> Some themes are dark, but as this story turned into a romantic fantasy along the lines of Princess Bride, it became glaringly obvious there would be a happy ending. So there is.
> 
> Feedback is always welcome and Kudos are a joy to receive.
> 
> ###### 

It didn’t happen during any of the times you’d think it would. Not when Simon went to Detroit to learn how to get rid of the Mark of Cain. Not at the Seelie Court when he was going through the agony of burning the mark from his body or afterwards when he was guzzling down Isabelle’s blood like a Slurpee to recover. 

It should have happened when he stood in front of Raphael, human Raphael, in the soft orange glow of sunset after the Clave injected the other man with Heavenly Fire or while they fought side by side to save the Downworld. But it didn’t. 

Simon’s traitorous brain decided that the best moment to recover his memory was an uneventful weeknight in bed with Isabelle, fighting over the remote control. 

“But I need it,” she insisted with an edge to her voice. “And I’m going to have it!”

She snatched the remote control from his numb fingers. All he could do was stare blankly at the panoramic photo of the Brooklyn Bridge above the headboard while the memories that had been chased out by a vampiric Encanto rushed back in.

For one night, over a year ago, he’d gotten in between Raphael Santiago and Isabelle Lightwood. 

Simon remembered the alley, Raphael’s smooth voice ordering him to come back to the hotel DuMort. He remembered Isabelle, pale and shaking on a bright red couch, pulling him to the bloody gash on her chest. She’d said the same thing then. 

“Simon? Simon, what’s wrong?” 

He snapped out of it with a shudder. “I gotta go to the bathroom.” 

Izzy reached after him, but he squirmed out of her grip and booked it to the bathroom as quickly as he could. The door slammed a little too hard between them. He flicked the lock before Izzy could open it again.

“Simon, are you okay?” Her voice wobbled between concern and confusion.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine.” He was shaking harder than his Bubbie Helen’s chihuahua. “I’m fine, just … Give me a moment.” 

He stumbled to the sink, splashed cold water on his face, and stared at his pasty grimace of terror in the mirror. He was not fine. 

He had kissed Raphael. Simon remembered the exact moment when he’d thrown himself off that moral cliff and forcefully pressed his lips against Raphael’s, pushed his tongue into the other man’s mouth.

_I wanted it._

Raphael’s husky growl reverberated in his mind like an electric current under his skin. 

_Take it._

Simon shivered. In the mirror, his dark eyes stared blindly back at him as memories crashed over each other like churning ocean waves. 

His face buried in Izzy’s neck, his dick hard as a rock, as he sucked her blood straight from the carotid. 

Raphael’s fingers around his throat, bruising, crushing; deadly fangs less than an inch from his face. 

Sliding off the couch into Raphael’s lap, amped up, confused, high out of his mind. Wanting more. 

Tearing into Raphael’s throat. 

Simon dry-heaved into the sink.

Blood everywhere, his hand pressed to Raphael’s mauled throat, wanting to tear off his own arm so he wouldn’t give in to the bloodlust. 

He had almost killed Raphael. 

_Do you have anything to say for yourself?_

Simon sucked in breath after breath, hands clamped around the rim of the sink. The enamel under his fingers began to crack. 

_Kill me._

He had wanted to die for what he’d done. He’d deserved to die for it. He had nearly killed Raphael, and, if not for that, he would have drained Izzy dry. 

_Clean up this mess._

Disgust and self-loathing slammed into him like a brick wall.

Wishing he could walk into the sunlight and burn to ash like the monster he was. Taking one of Raphael’s shirts, adding insult to injury. Listening from the hallway, concealed like a criminal, while Raphael erased Izzy’s memories. Relief and guilt like a double-punch in the gut. 

“She doesn’t know,” he whispered to his reflection.

The boathouse. 

_I wanted it._

_Take it, and then make me forget._

Simon stopped breathing. 

When he finally made himself come out of the bathroom, Izzy looked up from their bed, her face a mask of concern. 

“Are you okay?” 

“Yeah,” he lied. “Yeah, I think that last batch of blood was too old or something. Sorry. Might not want to go in there for a while.” He jerked his thumb back at the bathroom door. 

“Aww, poor thing. Come here.” She patted the mattress next to her. “Do you want me to get you something fresh?” 

“No!” He shook his head. “No, that’s all right. I think I just need to lie down for a bit.” He crawled back into bed. 

Izzy immediately shuffled over and put her arm around him. She stroked his hair and barely paid attention to the TV show that had been so important a few minutes ago.

Simon didn’t move for the rest of the night. He lay flat on his back, motionless like the corpse he was, with Isabelle curled up against his side. He replayed the memories from that night, over and over again, torturing himself until he was sure he had snatched back every painful detail from the jaws of oblivion. 

The next morning, he felt like refried shit. Angry refried shit with an ax to grind. 

He kissed Izzy goodbye before she left and promised to catch up with her later at the Institute. Then he took the C train up to 135th and walked the last few blocks. 

The church was small. Maybe a hundred feet between the entrance and the altar. Icons on the walls, dark brown pews lined up neatly in two rows. It looked a lot like the temple Simon used to attend, except for the confessional booths against the wall. 

He spotted Raphael as soon as the other man stepped out from an alcove behind the confessionals, carrying a bucket in one hand and a yellow leather cloth in the other. Dressed in a short-sleeve black button-down shirt and black slacks, his dark, curly hair combed back and tamed with gel, Raphael looked exactly the same as he had a year ago. 

Simon felt cheated. He should have looked different somehow – older – like the frail human being he was now. 

As soon as Raphael disappeared inside one of the booths, Simon used his vampire speed to swoosh into the adjoining cabin. He’d seen enough movies to know how this worked. Only, it wasn’t his transgressions that were on the agenda today.

“Forgive me, father,” he drawled sarcastically, “I think you’ve sinned.” 

“I’m sorry.” Raphael sounded genuinely contrite. “I’m not ordained, I can’t—”

The bastard didn’t even recognize him. Simon bristled. “You took something that wasn’t yours—”

“Simon?” 

A spike of something drove through him at hearing Raphael say his name. Simon ignored it and plowed right ahead, “And then you lied about it.” 

“Simon, I don’t understand.”

He could feel his anger boil under his skin like a living thing. “There was some fornication, too. Adultery, I guess you’d call it. I’m a bit shaky on the terms, different dogma and all that.”

“Simon.” 

“Damnit, Raphael. You took my memories.” 

The door to the confessional opened and Raphael stood in front of him. The bastard had the gall to look completely calm and at peace. 

“I think we should talk about this outside.” 

His voice was still the same. Like warm honey dripping onto Simon’s balls – damnit he never should have let Izzy talk him into experimenting with food kink.

“Fuck you.” 

Simon burst out of the confessional, stalked down the main aisle, and practically wrenched the front door from its hinges on the way out. 

There was a small park across the street. Simon walked through traffic, ignoring the squealing breaks and the angry curses from the drivers that nearly slammed into him.

“Fuck you, too!” 

He stopped in the middle of the bare clearing, closed his eyes, and turned his face toward the sky. It felt like he was burning from the inside out, but the warm sunlight on his face had nothing to do with it. 

Simon knew when Raphael joined him. He recognized the scent of the other man’s cologne even before he heard the footsteps on the grass. It was the same fragrance, minus the sharp musk of sex and blood.

Simon gritted his teeth. He placed his hands on his hips and clawed his fingers into the small of his back, desperate to feel anything other than the scorching, boiling fury in his veins. Raphael’s deep, even breathing roared like a gale in his ears. When Raphael finally spoke, the somber tone in his voice made Simon’s skin crawl. 

“I didn’t think I’d see you again after the wedding.” 

Magnus and Alec’s wedding at the Institute over a year ago. The memory cut through clean and sharp like one of Izzy’s treasured angel blades. 

Raphael had found Simon and Izzy on the dancefloor, congratulated them on becoming a couple, announced he had joined the seminary. 

Couldn’t have asked for a better man.

“Oh, I should have known.” Simon dropped his chin and shot a glare at Raphael. It was so obvious, looking back at their conversation now. “You practically handed us off to each other. A lot to repent for?” He threw the words back in Raphael’s face. “You sanctimonious dick!”

“I understand that you’re angry.” 

Raphael shifted onto his back foot and raised his hands as if he were dealing with some angry member of the congregation complaining about a lack of song books. Always so put together, still so damn composed and in control. 

“Under…” Simon guffawed. “You don’t understand shit!” 

Raphael sighed. “Why did you come here, Simon?” 

“I love Izzy.” 

He did. He truly, deeply did, but now he was questioning everything. Every moment of their relationship was in doubt because Simon had no idea if Isabelle really loved him or if she only loved him because she didn’t know what he was capable of. Would she still snuggle up next to him if she knew he had ripped her ex-boyfriend’s throat out, nearly killed him, and then tempted him into an animalistic rutting session complete with memory wipe to cap off the night? 

“Then why are you here?” 

Good fucking question. 

“You took my memories. You didn’t even stop to ask. You just … I almost killed you. I almost killed Izzy. We had sex, and then you took it away. You just …” 

“The way I remember it,” Raphael said calmly, “you asked me to make you forget.” 

“You shouldn’t have listened!” 

Raphael’s eyes went wide and the rushing gale in Simon’s ears stopped in the middle of a breath. It was gratifying. Almost as gratifying as it was to watch the tightly controlled veneer slip off Raphael’s face. His dark brown eyes narrowed and the meticulously shaped brows furrowed deeply over the bridge of his nose. 

“What would you have had me do instead?” 

Simon’s brain supplied answers in chaotic flashes. 

Raphael tearing his throat out – or kissing him like there was no tomorrow – dumping Simon’s body in the East River – or taking him back to the Hotel DuMort – lying to Clary when she asked what had happened to Simon – or telling Clary the truth, together, across a table at the Jade Wolf.  
They could have gone so many different ways. Simon might have never become a Daylighter. Never suffered the Mark of Cain. Never had to watch Clary choose Jace over him twice. Never had to be in doubt whether Isabelle really loved him; certain that Raphael really did want him. 

Simon didn’t think. He swooped in, grabbed Raphael by the back of the neck with both hands and pressed their mouths together. He could feel the hard fist grabbing the fabric of his shirt, and there was a fraction of a moment where Raphael leaned into him, their tongues intertwined, and it tasted like vindication, but then Raphael pushed him away. 

“No, Simon. Stop.” 

Raphael stood in front of him pale and shaken. He looked like he’d come face to face with a nasty skeleton in his very old closet. His eyes were wide, gleaming in the sunlight. He sucked in shallow breaths, the smell of fear exuding from his every pore. Simon could see the rush of thick, savory blood, hear its seductive rhythm, as it pumped through the artery on Raphael’s neck. 

“Coward.” He spat the word between them. “You’re such a fucking coward.” 

Yet, it was Simon who disappeared from the clearing with the swiftness only a vampire could muster.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **DO NOT SKIP THIS WARNING!** Here there be gerbils!!! No, actually, here there be explicit sexual content between Simon and Isabelle, so if you do not want to see that, please skip the parts between "Truth Hurt, but some truths hurt less than others." and Izzy saying "That was different". Everyone else, welcome to the train of bad decisions that will take us to the plot. All aboard! 
> 
> Feedback is always welcome and Kudos will be loved and hugged.
> 
> ###### 

By the time he arrived at the Institute, Simon was still all worked up, his head stuffed full of stupid thoughts. He needed to know.

He blew off the Shadowhunter on admin duty who was trying to keep him out of the Head’s office and locked the door firmly behind him.

“Izzy, I’ve gotta talk to you.”

Isabelle looked up from behind her desk, delicate brows raised high on her forehead as she set aside the report she’d been reading.

“Sure,” she said. “I’m surprised you’re here already. I thought for sure you weren’t going to come in at all, what with … you know.” She made a vague motion toward her crimson lips.

Simon’s eyes widened. Was it possible that Isabelle had had him followed? Did she already know what had happened at the park in front of the church?

“What?”

“The bad blood thing,” she said with an uncomfortable grimace.

“Oh.” He shook his head. “No. No, that’s fine.”

“Then what is it?”

She looked confused. She looked beautiful. Her long black hair was pulled up into one of those immaculate updos she’d learned from her mother, Maryse. Her dress was tight and flattering. The Angelic Power Rune between her breasts was visible above the straight, horizontal neckline.

Simon closed the distance between them and pulled her out of her chair. She made a noise in her throat that he cut off with his mouth, pressing her close as he kissed her like there was no tomorrow. When her tongue slipped past his lips, everything fell into place.

He’d never known anything like this. Not with Clary, not with anyone. Isabelle was sweetness spiced with chili and cinnamon. She made him want to say yes to anything she asked, do whatever she demanded, no holds barred, no shame.

“I love you,” he breathed desperately against her mouth.

“I love you, too,” she replied with a chuckle against his lips. “What brought this on?”

“Say it again,” he demanded as his hands scrabbled at the hem of her dress, trying to push it up over her hips.

“I love you,” she repeated without hesitation.

He swallowed, trying to hold back. She didn’t need to have the whole story. Maybe if he just talked in hypotheticals … He just needed to know.

“Even if I did something terrible?” 

Izzy pulled back, both hands on his shoulders, trying to look him in the eyes. “Simon, what’s going on? You’re acting strange.”

“Just tell me,” he pleaded. “If I did something awful, like if I almost killed someone. Would you still love me?”

Isabelle’s grip tightened on his shoulders, but she didn’t pull further away. “Simon, what is this about?”

He bit his lip and shook his head, chickened out, and buried his face in her neck.

“Just freaking out,” he confessed. “Don’t worry about it. You know I get insecure.”

Truth hurt, but some truths hurt less than others.

“Kiss me and make it better?” he breathed against her neck as he slipped his hand between her legs and wormed his fingers inside her panties.

“Yes,” she hissed and dragged him by the chin until their lips were mashed together, tongues wrestling for dominance.

Simon buried his fingers inside her and held her tight as she shuddered and writhed against his hand.

“Yeah,” he echoed.

They shoved the paperwork out of their way, and Izzy sprawled across her desk like the porn version of Snow White.

Simon buried his face in her chest and sucked in the smell that was, to him, as addictive as cocaine. His hands slid along her curves until he could claw down the flimsy piece of cotton between him and where he wanted to be.

Izzy lifted her hips and let him slide off her panties, then hooked one leg over his shoulder and pulled him in, no words necessary to let him know exactly what she wanted.

He inhaled deeply, his dick swelling at the scent of her arousal, and flicked his tongue against her heated flesh.

Izzy bucked into his mouth, grabbed his hair, and crooned. She arched up when he bit the inside of her thigh with blunt, human teeth and then she moaned deep in her throat when he grazed them along her skin until he reached her core and sucked her clit between his lips.

“Oh, fuck!”

She made the same mindless, breathless, broken noises she always made when he dragged his tongue across her slit, pushed two fingers inside her, and crooked them up until ...

“Right there! Yes, fuck!”

Izzy whined and bucked and came apart, squeezing around his fingers, making his dick twitch in anticipation of being inside her.

He fumbled with his belt, but Izzy’s long, nimble fingers were right there, carmine nails flashing across nickel and denim, handling him gently, guiding him inside.

The heat was like nothing his Mundane self could ever have imagined. His eyes rolled back and he crashed forward onto his hands, so close to her skin, so close to the blood just beneath it. Never allowed to go there. Not with a recovering addict. 

His fangs dropped anyway.

Izzy moaned and clamped her legs around his ass, clenched tightly, and bucked her hips.

They fucked so hard the desk scraped across the floor, and if anyone was dumb enough to eavesdrop in the hall, they’d get an earful of profanity.

This was it. Everything he needed. So much more than he’d ever thought to want. Izzy’s eyes were wide and blind with pleasure, her blood red lips gaping open, blunt ivory teeth and slick pink tongue peeking out every time she cursed or snarled or keened.

“Fuck!”

He yanked down the neckline of her dress and buried his face between her breasts. So close. Her blood roared in his ears, like a fierce torrent crashing over his head. The smell was intoxicating, screaming like a siren song inside his head. Thick, sweet cinnamon and chili, his for the taking, all he had to do was give in. His mouth watered; his fangs ached. He scraped them gently down the curve of her breast, lashed his tongue across the stiff peak of her nipple.

“Simon!”

Her muscles clenched, drawing him deeper, tighter, hotter, and he shook uncontrollably as his release tore through him and sucked him down like a riptide.

The first sound that came back to him was Izzy’s beating heart under his ear, steady and calm like the first cycle of a washing machine. He was pretty sure if his heart could still beat, it’d be hammering from exhilaration.

“That was different,” she said.

He could hear the Cheshire grin in her voice. Her fingernails traced lazy circles on his back.

“Yeah,” he croaked. “Not bad, though. Right?”

Guilt was worming its nasty tendrils into the back of his mind. He’d almost bitten her. He’d been this close. Another minute and he might have—

“Are you kidding?” She snorted. “I haven’t come so hard since …” She paused, obviously giving the comment some real thought. “That time we did it with the ginger lube.”

Simon cringed. He remembered the night in question a little differently and with less fondness.

He pulled free of Izzy’s arms and cleaned them both up as much as possible with a few thin tissues from the box that Izzy kept on the corner of her desk “for emotional support and germ control”.

“Not that I’m complaining,” she purred as she sat up and slipped her graceful legs back into the panties Simon was holding open for her. “But I’d still like an explanation for what brought this on all of a sudden.”

Simon couldn’t bring himself to meet her eyes. He had no idea how to explain himself without spilling everything, which was the last thing he wanted to do.

“Nothing specific,” he lied. “It’s just me. You don’t have to worry about it. I’ll get over it.”

“Simon.”

Izzy’s warm hand on his cheek was making it super hard to keep his mouth shut. He wanted to cry, break down inside her arms, and confess everything. Even the stupid, stupid confrontation he’d had with Raphael in the park across the church.

The door rattled in its frame as an insistent fist banged against it from the other side.

“Ma’am?” The annoyed voice of the admin guy from earlier was barely muffled by the sturdy wood. “The Head of the Paris Institute is linked into the conference room. He says you were scheduled for a meeting ten minutes ago.”

“I’m coming!” Isabelle barked impatiently.

They both stared at each other as the unintentional double entendre sank in.

“Don’t you say anything,” she warned him with a finger pointed at the tip of his nose.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

She straightened herself up and made sure to fix her hair in the mirror and clean up any makeup smudges before she walked over to the door.

“We’ll talk about this at home tonight,” she said with her hand on the doorknob. “Don’t think I’m letting you off the hook just because some pushy French guy is begging for my attention.”

Simon raised his hands in mock surrender and nodded acquiescence, even though he had no intention of telling Izzy what had really happened. “Of course.”

“I love you,” she said with a brilliant smile.

“I love you, too,” he said honestly, wishing he could truly believe her.

The admin guy bestowed him with a nasty glower when Simon left Izzy’s office behind her, but he couldn’t care less. His skin was still crawling and nothing had been resolved by having a quickie at work.

Simon stalked into the Ops Center with a scowl on his face and guilt strangling his throat. He had no idea what to do about his fucking insecurities, but he really wanted to punch something. Maybe that would actually help. 

“Do you have anything?” he asked, only half-paying attention to the blonde Shadowhunter on surveillance duty.

When she turned around to look at him, he regretted asking.

Helen Blackthorn was half-Seelie, half-Shadowhunter, and, more importantly, part of the “Girls Night Out” cloverleaf that also included Clary and Isabelle. Fuck.

“A couple sightings of Shax demons out in Queens, near the High Warlock’s residence. Are you okay?”

She rattled everything off as if it was part of the same sentence, and her clear blue eyes pinned Simon down in a way that made him seriously wonder if Seelies could force-transfer their native inability to lie onto other people just by staring at them really hard.

“Yeah.” He fidgeted. “I’m fine.” He shoved his hands into his back pockets, forced himself to stand still, and smiled. “Any more info on those Shax?”

“We’re not sure, but the working theory is they’re after the High Warlock’s new girlfriend. She might have gotten onto the radar of a jealous ex. The mission is to find out for sure who the target is, neutralize the Shax demons, and bring in whoever summoned them for questioning.”

“Got it.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Fine.” His cheeks hurt from smiling like nothing was wrong. 

“Okay.” Helen didn’t sound like she believed him. “I’ll send you with Underhill.”

“No!” Simon took an instinctive step back. “It’s just a couple Shax demons. I can handle it.”

The last thing he needed was the uncannily perceptive, selflessly supportive personality of Andrew Underhill anywhere near him. He was trying to keep it together, here.

Helen narrowed her eyes, but she thankfully didn’t question his intense reaction or force him to reconsider.

“If you say so,” she said slowly. “He’s been due some time off, anyway, and I know his boyfriend has been complaining to Izzy about their mismatched hours.” She chewed her bottom lip and considered it for another moment. “Fine.” She was on the draw with her pointy finger as quickly as Izzy. “But call for back up the second things go sideways.”

“Of course.”

When things predictably went spectacularly sideways, he didn’t have time to call for backup. The person who’d summoned the Shax demons turned out to be not a jealous ex, but an ambitious female rival gunning for the High Warlock position.

Things turned nastier than a close-up picture of genital herpes, and at the end of it all, Simon barely got out in one piece, and the relationship between the vampire and warlock communities might be strained for a while. Good thing both groups were immortal, giving them a lot of time to smooth things over.

Simon dragged his sore and beaten ass into Taki’s Diner sometime around midnight. Maia was behind the counter, spreading her infectious optimism along the sparse weekday crowd. Simon was, unfortunately, immune.

“You okay?”

There was concern in her voice, but Simon was reasonably sure she was talking about the lacerations on his face, so the question didn’t cause the same uncomfortable, squirmy feeling as it did with Helen.

“Long day at work,” he joked dryly. “I’ll live.”

“You better,” she demanded with faux harshness in her mellow voice before she let him off the hook. “What can I get you?”

“Plasma.”

He hadn’t even thought about it. The word just came out as if there wasn’t anything else for a vampire to drink.

Maia flinched. A look of doubt flitted over her soft brown features, and the way she curled her upper lip exposed the cute little gap between her front teeth. If only things had worked out between him and this beautiful, smart, spirited werewolf woman, Simon might never have ended up in the mess that was currently burying him alive.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

The last time Simon had had plasma, Heidi had happened. Not a block on memory lane either of them wanted to revisit. In spite of that, there was nothing else he wanted to drink right now. This night called for getting plastered.

“Yup.”

Bless her heart, Maia didn’t protest. She gave him what he ordered, and he guzzled it down one shot after the other until he forgot his own name or where exactly he was trying to go with anything, really.

He followed his out-of-control train of thought until he ended up staggering on the steps in front of the inexpressive Catholic church somewhere north of 135th street in Harlem.

“Raphael!”

He screamed at the tall, arched doors until his voice went sore, and then screamed some more until a hobo screamed back at him to shut the fuck up.


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning, Simon woke up sometime around dawn, face down on a hard bench in the small park across the street from Raphael's church, feeling like the worst outtake from a lame-ass drama short on YouTube.

He had never been so embarrassed in his life, not even when he’d gotten a stiffy during English class because Clary’s nascent 6th grade boobs had accidentally brushed against his 12-year-old elbow.

Izzy was pissed when he got back to the Institute. Simon couldn’t blame her. She had expected him to come home last night and explain what the hell had gotten into him. Instead, he had recklessly risked his life on a solo mission and stayed out all night without calling in.

“I’m sorry, Iz.”

“Yeah, well, not as sorry as you’re going to be when you’re sleeping on the couch tonight,” she fumed, her beautiful face distorted in a grimace of fury and exhaustion. “Where the hell have you been?”

“Harlem,” he answered honestly.

“Harlem?” she echoed incredulously. “Are you serious? Did you even think about what people might say to me when they showed up at the scene in Queens to find three dead Shax demons and a half-dead warlock drained to within an ounce of exsanguination? What were you thinking?!”

Simon hung his head. “It wasn’t my fault.” 

Izzy snorted, nostrils flaring below the tip of her pretty nose, and turned her face to the stained-glass window above her desk. She was probably invoking the Angel in her mind for patience or maybe just for the strength to resist snapping his neck right then and there.

“Then whose fault was it?”

“Things got messy,” Simon said evasively, not willing to rat out the person who had come to his aid. He didn’t have many friends left in the New York clan as it was. “The warlock evaded arrest and attacked me with a fire spell.”

Simon could have been dead. If it wasn’t for an unbelievable stroke of luck and stupid coincidence, he would have been.

Izzy was still vibrating with anger, but she was holding it together. “I expect a full report on my desk by the end of the day,” she said coolly. 

“Of course,” he said, nodding in agreement, already backing up toward the door.

“And you and me are going to finish this conversation when we get home tonight.”

Simon cringed. He would have to find another reason to stay out as long as possible.

“Before you get any ideas,” Izzy snapped. “I’ve restricted you to desk duty for a week.”

No punishment Simon had ever received had felt quite as humiliating as practically being grounded by his girlfriend.

“Understood.”

It had taken every bit of self-control he had in him to utter the word with a modicum of professional detachment. He still slammed the door on his way out.

Simon knew he should be thorough and double check that he hadn’t slipped up on the details in the report, but he barely paid attention while he slapped down the bare bones of what had happened. There was no way he would name names, so the Clave would just have to deal with knowing there had been “an old ally within the Downworld community” involved in the take-down of the criminal warlock who had tried to usurp the position of High Warlock of Queens from her predecessor.

Once the report was finished, Simon dropped it on the desk of the annoying admin guy that had tried to get in his way the day before, and stormed out of the Institute with a head full of steam. There wasn’t much “desk duty” to speak of when your job was to deal with actual demon attacks, even in a city as big as New York.

He considered going back to Taki’s, but if he showed up at the diner this early in the day for anything other than a healthy lunch and a round of innocuous banter, Maia would know something was wrong, and he’d have yet another smart, stubborn woman on his case when he really needed to find a way out of his head.

He ended up downtown, at the Hunter’s Moon, sitting across from an unfamiliar face at the bar, downing more shots of plasma.

Sometime between his third and fourth shot, a pretty Seelie showed up on his right and draped herself all over the reddish-brown wood next to him, boobs squished together in an impressive display of cleavage that might have interested Simon if he hadn’t been used to waking up to more breathtaking views with dark, permanent marks licking seductive trails across pale gossamer skin every day for nearly a year.

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” he drawled into his shot glass before he downed it in one go. “Sorry, you’re not my type.”

“I can be anyone,” she drawled, trailing a long pointy finger along his forearm. “All you have to do is tell me what you want.”

Another hand, tan and large with manicured nails, picked the greenish-white digit off Simon like a stray piece of debris.

“I think he’s made it clear that he’s not interested.”

Simon laughed helplessly and rested his forehead against the cool wet bar in front of him.

“You’re kidding, right?” 

When he looked up again, the Seelie was gone. Raphael was sitting next to him, looking at him with soulful brown eyes that might as well have been a written invitation to Sunday Mass.

“How did you find me?” Simon drawled, gesturing to the bartender for another shot of plasma.

“I didn’t,” Raphael said calmly. “I came here to meet with someone else.”

Simon chuckled, even though he didn’t feel the humor. “Trying to round up an extra lost sheep for bonus points?”

“Is that what you are?” Raphael’s voice was unnervingly low and sultry. That kind of voice had no business coming out of a priest’s mouth.

“Fuck you.” The words slurred together, tangled on Simon’s numb tongue. “Why do you even pretend you care?”

“That’s not fair, Simon. You know I care about you.” 

“Bullshit.”

Raphael didn’t even flinch. He just closed his eyes like some long suffering, goddamned saint and stepped away from the bar.

“All right,” he said. “I think it’s time we get you home. Izzy’s going to be worried.”

“Don’t!” Simon snarled, yanking his elbow out of the other man’s grip. “Don’t you even talk about her.”

Raphael raised his hands, just like he’d done in the park, and Simon wanted to slap them down, punch that infuriating calm out of his face, bruise those perfect fucking lips and make them bleed. Crack the veneer.

“I promise I won’t.”

Simon lunged with a roar, nearly toppling them over.

“Hey!” The bartender’s voice was surprisingly loud and scary. “Take that shit outside!” His tawny eyes flashed bright green. Werewolf.

If he’d been any less intoxicated, Simon would have been mortified how easily Raphael maneuvered him out the door and into the cold, buzzing, orange-lit street.

“Get off me!”

He wriggled out of the other man’s grip, reeled around swinging, and landed an impressive hook on Raphael’s jaw.

Raphael dropped like a stone.

Fuck!

Simon crashed to his knees and placed one shaky hand gently under Raphael’s head to get a look at his face.

“Raphael, I’m so sorry.”

Wasn’t he fucking always? He was such a goddamn fucking idiot waste of immortality. How the fuck could he have just forgotten that Raphael was human now? Worse, a Mundane. Frail and breakable, and dead in the blink of an eye if anything happened. 

“Shit, look at me. How bad is it?”

Raphael’s eyes were glazed, his pupils dilated. He blinked sluggishly, opened his mouth, and spat out a jagged white chunk of tooth in a gush of blood.

Shame gripped the back of Simon’s neck like a vice when Raphael pushed him off and dragged himself backward, wobbling precariously until he sat up with his hands braced on the ground behind his back.

“It’s nothing,” he rasped and wiped the blood from his mouth into the black sleeve of his shirt. “You punch like a fledgling.”

Simon blubbered like a baby, laughing at the same time. He was too drunk, too relieved, and too damn ashamed to control his emotions. “Do you have to be so damn …” He couldn’t nail down the right word. Arrogant. Cool. Blasé. Magnanimous. Forgiving. Protective. Infuriating. “You.”

Raphael rolled his head in a shrug. “I am what I am.”

“Quoting Gloria Gaynor?”

“George Hearn, actually.”

“Whatever.”

Even though they sat in the middle of the sidewalk, true to the New York spirit, the people passing by ignored their existence. It still felt stupid to stay there.

“Are you okay to get up?” Simon asked, once he got back on his feet, and held out his hand.

Raphael shot him a baleful glare and ignored the gesture. “Of course. I told you, you punch like a—”

The words stopped abruptly as Raphael wobbled on shaking legs, eyes rolling up into his head. He would have crashed right back down to the pavement if Simon hadn’t grabbed him around the waist and steadied Raphael’s weight against his shoulder.

“Yeah,” Simon grumbled, “and you took it like a Mundane.”

“Don’t let it go to your head.”

Standing on the sidewalk, with Raphael’s arm draped over his shoulders, the other man’s weight solid and warm against his side, Simon faltered.

“I … should probably take you to the hospital,” he muttered.

“No.” Raphael’s tone was blunt and uncompromising. “Let’s just walk. Give me some time to walk it off.”

“Are you sure?” Simon wasn’t convinced this was a good idea, and he was still drunk.

“Yeah, I’m sure.” Raphael lurched forward, dragging them into a shambling walk. “Besides, no one would pay attention to me with all that blood on your face, crybaby.”

“Fuck you,” Simon said, but the words came out with less bite than a toothless puppy.

“Not gonna happen,” Raphael slurred. “Chastity, remember?”

The quip stung more than it should have.

They shambled their way down the block, neither saying anything, and occasionally ducked their heads to avoid the rare looks they garnered from people walking in the opposite direction.

“I miss you,” Simon blurted out of the blue, not sure where his mouth was running off to.

Until two nights ago, he hadn’t even thought about Raphael in months. Before that, they’d been adversaries more than anything. Except for that one night and a handful of times when their goals had been momentarily aligned. What exactly was it that Simon thought he was missing about the aloof ex-vampire who, by the way, had tried to kill him on several occasions?

Raphael’s look managed to sum up Simon’s entire crazy train of thought with a quirk of his eyebrows and a lazy tilt of his head.

“Really?” he drawled.

“Shut up.”

Simon hoisted Raphael’s sliding body higher against his side and kept walking, eyes straight ahead, trying to ignore the darkening bruise on Raphael’s jaw.

“Why did you have to do it?” he gritted through his teeth, and, knowing his mind had jumped three tracks, he clarified. “Why’d you take my memories? And Izzy’s?”

Raphael sighed. He sounded tired when he said, “I thought it was the right thing to do.” 

“How?”

Simon hated the whine in his voice, but he was still only somewhat in control of his emotions and apparently, totally out of control over the words that came out of his mouth. 

Raphael closed his eyes and his brows furrowed deeply over his nose. When he started to clench his jaw, he winced and stifled a groan behind pale lips.

“Sorry,” Simon said reflexively. “Never mind. We don’t have to talk about this.”

“Yes, we do.” Raphael sucked in a shaky breath through his nose. “But maybe we should sit down somewhere.”

They found an empty bus bench and sat down next to each other. Simon felt bereft when Raphael’s arm slid off his shoulders and they ended up with a couple inches of space between them. He told himself it was just the sudden lack of warmth.

The silence stretched to the point of awkward before Raphael started to talk in a quiet, contemplative tone.

“You thought what happened that night was all on your head, and I knew you weren’t going to be able to swallow that. You’d have broken down and confessed to Clary Fairchild, and that girl had her head so far up her own …” Raphael paused, licked his lips, and took a deep breath that rushed loudly in Simon’s ears. “She would have told everyone, and once the Clave knew, they would have killed both of us and kicked Isabelle to the curb in a heartbeat.”

Simon clenched his jaw, offended on behalf of himself and his childhood friend, Clary, who would have never intentionally done anything to hurt him. Of course, therein lay the rub. Intentionally, she wouldn’t have, but if he was honest with himself, Simon had to admit that Clary had let him be collateral damage more than once. Still.

“I could have kept the secret,” he insisted stubbornly.

Raphael scoffed. “Simon, you couldn’t take someone’s pen without immediately confessing.”

“I’ll have you know I’ve got quite the collection.”

“It doesn’t count when they’re marketing material.”

“I haven’t told Izzy about us,” he shot back defensively.

Raphael stopped breathing. Then he very slowly exhaled and inhaled again. “That’s your decision.”

Simon turned his head so fast he nearly snapped his neck. “Seriously?”

Raphael folded his hands in his lap and stared long and hard at his intertwined fingers.

“I take full responsibility for my actions, but, whether or not you want to tell Isabelle about what happened, a year ago, yesterday, or today, is up to you. She is your girlfriend. You have to figure out how to do right by her and keep a clear conscience.”

“Oh, don’t give me that preacher crap,” Simon groused, feeling his heckles go up. “And don’t pretend like this doesn’t affect you, too.”

A smile tugged at the corner of Raphael’s mouth. “How could I, with a throbbing jaw and a cracked molar?”

The bitterness in Simon’s mouth was definitely more than just the plasma going stale. “Do you get off on making me feel guilty?”

“God knows I don’t.”

Simon rubbed his hands over his face, mildly disgusted when his fingers came back dusted with dried blood. He would never get used to crying bloody tears.

“Really? ‘Cause you’re pretty damn good at it.”

“I can hardly take credit,” Raphael scoffed. “You are the most self-conscious person I have ever known.”

“Yeah, well, we can’t all be born suave Latino heart-throbs with buckets of confidence and a blowjob voice.”

Raphael laughed, then groaned, and cradled his jaw, probing gingerly at the swollen bruise.

“I can’t say I’ve ever thought of myself like that,” he muttered under his breath.

“How could you not?” Simon shook his head, remembering every moment of jealousy muddled in confusing desire and naïve admiration. “Man, I had such a stupid fanboy crush on you back then.” 

“Simon.”

“Izzy practically threw herself at you.” He laughed, ignoring the uncomfortable look on Raphael’s face. “She told me all about it, you know? A couple months after we got together, she got really drunk one night and just …” He made a pouring motion with his hands. “It all came out.” He snickered. “Right before she ran to the bathroom and everything else came out.”

Simon turned his head too look Raphael dead in the eyes and raised his brows in challenge. “You’re not like that?” He shook his head. “Weren’t you afraid just saying that would bring back her memories? I mean, it’s what did it for me. One throw-away line and BAM.” He clapped his hands together with a loud crack.

Raphael jumped. When he spoke, his voice was so quiet, Simon would have had to strain his ears if he hadn’t been a vampire.

“I was foolish and selfish.” Raphael shook his head. “Izzy and I … We were addicts and we were the drug. Walking away from each other was probably the hardest thing either of us ever had to do.” 

“What about me?” Simon hated how much he sounded like a spoiled child.

There was a glint in Raphael’s eyes when he looked up under lowered lashes. “You were a pain in my ass from the moment I snatched you out of that ridiculous van.”

“Hey, I didn’t ask to be kidnapped.”

“No, you didn’t.” Raphael sighed. “That’s one of many sins I will always have to live with.”

“But you did save me,” Simon admitted.

“I handed you over to the Shadowhunters.”

“Yeah, but if you hadn’t, I would have been dead for good.”

“As I recall, you would have preferred that outcome at the time.”

Simon shrugged. In the beginning, he had struggled with the idea of being a monster. A lot had happened since then. “Turns out if you can accept the bad, the good still makes un-life worth living.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

“I just wish …” Simon took a deep, cleansing breath through his nose, trying to sort out his messed-up mind.

Raphael’s scent filled his nose and wrapped around his throat like a silk garrote. Memories flashed like glamour shots behind Simon’s eyes: cold bodies pressed against each other, harsh breaths trapped between bruised lips, fingers locked, squeezing too tightly, hips bucking, grinding, arousal like electricity under his skin.

Simon stopped breathing until he was sure he wouldn’t throw himself at the other man. His fangs itched behind his tightly closed lips. He clenched his hands around the edge of the bench, hunched over, and fought for control.

He could hear the breath rush through Raphael’s lungs, hear the blood pump, slow and steady, through his veins. He could feel the heat radiating from Raphael like a shimmering aura, like sunlight brushing over his cold skin.

In his peripheral vision, he could see Raphael’s hand hover awkwardly. He shook his head, trying to warn Raphael off, but he couldn’t risk taking a breath to speak. When the warm hand came to rest, oh so gently, on Simon’s shoulder, he froze.

“Let it go, Simon.” Raphael’s low voice should have been soothing, but it had the opposite effect on Simon. “It’s all water under the bridge. There’s no sense in dragging it back up.”

Raphael had no idea how wrong he was. Whatever else had happened in the past, right now, in this very moment, Simon wanted him. He wanted him so bad his teeth ached, and not just from the blood lust scratching inside his throat like a rabid beast.

Simon did the only thing he could think of to protect them both. He fled.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where the plot starts rearing its ugly head. It's going to get dark. There'll be violence and blood and pain, torture and trials, and all that stuff. It's not hate-fic, though. If I was writing hate-fic, I'd be writing ten pages of torture porn involving Lilith and Jonathan. I digress. Enjoy, be warned. This is the only caution tape I'm going to put here. 
> 
> Let me know what you think.
> 
> ###### 

Simon ran until he reached the edge of the glamour perimeter around the Institute. Then he stood there like a moron, afraid to go inside. He couldn’t even be sure if Izzy was still at work.

His phone buzzed insistently inside his pocket. Simon closed his eyes, pulled his phone out, and checked with one eye open, knowing what it would say.

Izzy (Home) Calling.

He declined the call, turned off his phone, and ran in the opposite direction. Just like the night before, he had no idea where to go. When he finally figured it out, he had to laugh at himself just so he wouldn’t cry.

The boathouse had returned to its natural state: dusty, and moldy, stuffed with junk no one needed and old canoes and boat paraphernalia that nobody ever used. The only sign someone had ever lived there was the shabby carpet Simon had pilfered from a dumpster, and a couple of band posters he hadn’t bothered to pull off the walls when he had moved into the apartment.

Simon stared at the support beam holding up the cavernous space.

A burst of speed carried him up into the canoe on the top shelf, just below the ceiling. He stared at the moldy boards above him and tried not to remember what it had felt like to be trapped between hard wood and Raphael’s cool body, hips aligned, rutting like a couple of feral cats in heat. He tried not to remember the intoxicating scent or the taste of sex and blood and Raphael’s tongue in his mouth, setting his brain on fire.

He tried not to, but it was useless.

Simon hated himself for it, but that didn’t stop him from sliding his hands down to the waistband of his jeans. It didn’t stop him from popping the button and lowering the zipper. It didn’t stop him from letting fantasy take over reality as he reached inside his boxers and started to touch himself.

The next morning, he felt like refried shit, again, but he was determined to make things right. He had to tell Izzy the truth. He would undo Raphael’s Encanto on her and tell her everything. If she couldn’t forgive him, then he would have to accept that. He just couldn’t lie to her and he couldn’t avoid her any longer.

Resigned to his fate, Simon shuffled out of the boathouse. The weather was far too cheerful for the kind of day ahead of him. He squinted and brought his hand up to shield his eyes against the bright sunlight. That was when he noticed Raphael, dressed in his habitual stylish ensemble, standing in direct fucking sunlight.

Shit!

Simon acted instinctively in pure mindless terror. He swooshed across the distance, grabbed Raphael, and swooshed him into the safety of the boathouse.

“Are you insane? It’s bright daylight, and you’re …”

Raphael tilted his head and smirked in amusement. “I’m what?”

Comprehension felt like someone dumping an ice bucket over Simon’s head as his brain finally re-engaged on all cylinders.

“Human,” he groaned, and hung his head in embarrassment, “and perfectly fine in sunlight. Except for the very real threat of skin cancer, which could still kill you, so I was not completely overreacting, just looking out for you.”

“It’s nice to know how much you care,” Raphael purred, lifting one hand to pat at Simon’s tense bicep.

The instant Simon realized he was still holding on to Raphael’s arms, he let go and put a couple hasty steps between them. 

“Sorry,” he said, embarrassed, anxious, terrified that Raphael could smell where Simon’s hands had been all night. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be ashamed.” Raphael stepped forward, removing the distance Simon had just managed to create between them. “I’m glad.”

When Raphael placed a hand on his cheek, Simon’s eyes closed involuntarily. He felt himself swaying forward.

“You love me.” Raphael’s voice sounded breathy, surprised, as if he couldn’t believe his luck. “That’s gonna make this so much easier.”

Their lips met. Simon’s eyes snapped open in astonishment, too dumbstruck to do anything else. Raphael was kissing him. This was happening. It wasn’t a dream. Raphael Santiago was right in front of him, in this smelly, dusty old boathouse, kissing him.

Raphael’s tongue flicked against his upper lip. Sharp teeth tugged playfully at his bottom lip. A wandering hand slipped around Simon’s waist, crawled into the back pocket of his jeans, and copped a feel. Simon jumped back as if he’d been bitten.

“You’re not Raphael.”

“Damn.” Raphael pulled back with furrowed brows and curled his lips in annoyance. “What gave it away?”

Simon didn’t bother to answer the question. His hands balled into fists, ready to fight.

“Who are you? What have you done with Raphael?”

The impostor snickered, twisting Raphael’s features in a strange, unnatural way. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Simon didn’t hesitate. He used his vampire speed to grab the boat chains from their hook and tied the impostor to the support beam.

“Tell me where he is!” he roared at the stranger wearing Raphael’s face.

“How would I know?” The impostor shrugged, appearing unconcerned about being shackled to a wooden pillar. “More importantly, why should I care? I’m here for you.”

Simon had no patience left. More importantly, he didn’t need it. He pulled out his phone and turned it back on. Ignoring the queasy feeling in his stomach at the seven missed messages, he dialed the main number to contact the Ops Center. The voice who answered was thankfully unfamiliar.

“I’ve got an impostor here,” Simon said without preamble, “wearing the face of the previous leader of the New York Clan of vampires, Raphael Santiago. Threat level undetermined; status, unknown.” Simon could feel his fangs itch to drop as he looked at his captive. “Yeah, it’s contained. Send someone for pick up. The boathouse outside of Taki’s Diner down by the docks.”

He hung up and disappeared in a gust of air.

The subway wasn’t quick enough, so Simon ran at vamp speed all the way from the East River docks to Harlem. When he rushed up the stairs in front of Raphael’s church at human speed, he nearly barreled over a small group of people leaving after morning mass. Simon barely stopped long enough to apologize before he burst through the doors into the building.

“Raphael?”

Raphael was picking up song books and bibles where people had left them on the seats and placing them back in their designated nooks on the back of the pews. He was dressed in plain black shirt and slacks, the same humble outfit he had worn at the Hunter’s Moon the night before. He also had a dark purple bruise on the right side of his jaw that covered the lower half of his cheek.

Simon felt like a fucking moron for not noticing that obvious detail when the impostor had showed up at the boathouse.

“Simon? What’s going on? You disappeared so suddenly last night …” Raphael had stepped out of the pew and was moving toward him with a look of concern on his face.

“I think you’re in danger.” Simon nearly stumbled over his own feet in his haste to close the distance between them. “I’m not sure why, but there’s this guy, he looks like you, he pretended to be you, and he showed up at the boathouse.”

“Simon, you’re not making any sense.” Raphael reached out and placed his hand on Simon’s arm. “You moved out of the boathouse a year ago.”

“I know, I was just … It doesn’t matter. I was there, and then you showed up, and I dragged you out of the sunlight, and then you kissed me, but it wasn’t you, it was some kind of impostor, obviously, and I tied him down, so the Clave’s probably picked him up by now, but he was messing with my head, and I just needed to make sure …”

“What?” Raphael’s voice was barely audible.

“Oh, Siii-mon.”

The sing-song shout that sounded exactly like Raphael echoed from the rafters behind Simon, despite the fact that Raphael was standing right in front of him, staring over his shoulder at something that made the color drain from his face and his eyes go wide and glassy in shock.

Simon instinctively turned around and put his arm between Raphael and the threat. Only, the threat happened to look exactly like Raphael before he had turned into a Mundane.

“Leave him alone!” Simon barked.

The fake Raphael in the tailored suit rolled his eyes and clicked his tongue.

“I’m not here for him, Daylighter,” he drawled, sauntering down the aisle toward them. “I’m here for you.”

“What do you want with Simon?” Raphael’s hand was on Simon’s shoulder, and his tone reverberated with the authority of the leader of the New York clan of vampires.

Raphael’s doppelganger turned his head, smoothed a hand down his expensive suit, and smiled widely under raised eyebrows. “And who are you to ask me that? His lover? His sire?” He cackled derisively. “His priest?”

The muscle in Raphael’s jaw twitched, the one that gave whoever he was dealing with about five seconds before they had his fist around their throat. Simon took another step forward, trying to shield Raphael from the impostor as much as possible.

“What do you want?” he repeated the question.

“Oh, you’ll find out.” The impostor's smile was full of sharp teeth and menace. “Now, come here.”

“No.”

It wasn’t Simon who had responded.

“Really?” The fake Raphael narrowed his eyes at the real one, huffed out an irritated breath, and reached into his jacket, muttering to himself. “I should have just waited for him to come out. My bad, really. What was I thinking? Stupid night children and their stupid mundane pets.”

He pulled a long silver blade from inside his jacket and brandished it at both of them. “This blade is doused with both holy-water and quiver-root, so if either one of you gets any funny ideas, it’s going to be a matter of who dies first, got it? Now, Daylighter. Come. Here.”

“Simon, don’t.”

“Okay, okay. It’s okay.” Simon took Raphael’s hand off his shoulder, raised his hands, and slowly stepped forward. “Let’s not do anything hasty, okay?”

In the back of his mind, all Simon could think about was the blade slicing through Raphael’s throat, killing him before Simon could stop it. No matter what the impostor wanted with him, it was better than that alternative.

The moment he got within arm’s reach, the fake Raphael pulled Simon against him, turned him around, and pressed the blade high up against his throat.

“There, now was that so difficult?”

Simon’s eyes widened as he stood very still, not taking the risk to breathe. The real Raphael’s heartbeat was pounding in his ears, twice as fast as the quiet, steady heartbeat of the fake one behind him. 

“You won’t get away with this.”

Raphael’s fists were clenched tightly at his sides and his eyes burned with fury as he stared down his doppelganger whose face was so close, Simon could feel the smooth skin grate against the stubble on his cheek.

The impostor's laugh was a cold, hard bark that sounded nothing like Raphael. “What are you going to do?” he mocked. “You’re just a useless Mundane. You don’t even have the Sight. In fact, now you see us …”

Raphael blinked and stood alone in the middle of the church.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back again. For now, this story seems to write itself, though I'm not entirely sure how it's going to end. But it's definitely turning into a dark fantasy. You'll see. Let me know what you think. I'm a sucker for feedback.
> 
> ###### 
> 
> ###### 

It took less than a second for Raphael to decide what to do next. He walked out of the church and flagged down a taxi cab to take him on the fastest route to the corner of 51st and Madison Ave.

His heart hammered in his chest the entire time, his mind racing to commit every detail to memory that might help locate Simon and the person who had taken him. Unfortunately, the only image that was crystal clear in Raphael’s mind was the poisoned blade of the silver dagger pressed against the pale skin of Simon’s throat.

Raphael shoved a wad of bills through the small window in the divider and got out of the cab before it had come to a full stop at the curb.

The abandoned Gothic cathedral loomed in front of him, its twin spires reaching into the sky. Raphael tried to see past the glamour, but the central rose window remained broken, and the oak doors hung limply from rusted hinges inside their crumbling pointed arches, refusing to reveal the protective runes carved into their flesh. 

Raphael crossed himself and stepped forward, knowing he was breaching the perimeter wards, even though he was unable to see through the glamour that fooled his mundane eyes.

“Isabelle!” He shouted at the dilapidated building in front of him. “I need to speak to Isabelle Lightwood.”

Behind him, he heard a mundane couple titter behind raised hands about crazy hobos. Something inside him snapped.

“I am Raphael Santiago, former leader of the New York Clan, and I demand to speak with Isabelle Lightwood.”

The cathedral remained an empty ruin, looming silently before him. He rattled off a string of expletives under his breath and raised his voice again.

“Shadowhunters, one of your deputies has been taken, and if you don’t—”

A yank behind his navel cut him off and Raphael stumbled forward. When he looked up, the New York Institute rose before him in its full glory, sunlight glinting off the unblemished rose window and illuminating the dozens of protective runes carved into the solid oak doors. An unfamiliar Shadowhunter grabbed his arm and pushed him through the main entrance.

“The head of the Institute will see you, Mundane.”

“I see your kind have lost none of their charm,” Raphael muttered as he pulled his arm free and hurried down the long entryway toward the Ops Center.

“Raphael?”

Isabelle rushed across the room and wrapped him in a fierce hug. She still smelled spicy sweet and her body radiated warmth that sank right into his bones. Raphael allowed himself to hold on to that feeling for a moment. Maybe if his heart stopped pounding, he could think clearly and actually help Simon.

As soon as Isabelle drew back, she brushed her fingers over the bruise on his jaw. “What happened?”

Raphael flinched away. The bruise didn’t matter. His fight with Simon was unimportant. He pulled her hand down, and put a few steps of distance between them. “Simon was kidnapped. Someone wearing my face came to my church and took him.” He tried to sound calm, but he couldn’t keep his voice from shaking. 

Isabelle’s face went blank. For a moment, her eyes flitted back and forth in panic and her whole body seemed to lock up. Then she took a deep breath and released it on a shaky sigh.

“When did this happen?”

“Twenty, maybe thirty minutes ago. I came straight here,” Raphael said and quickly added, “It was definitely a Downworlder. When I said he looked like me, I mean it. The guy was a perfect copy down to my favorite suit. He called Simon a Daylighter, and he used a dagger poisoned with holy-water and quiver-root.”

“Quiver-root?” Isabelle’s brows drew together.

“Nasty crap,” Raphael spat. “Hard to come by unless you know a guy who knows a guy.”

Her gaze sharpened. “You think it could be a warlock?”

“Maybe?” Raphael shrugged, shaking his head. “Probably? I don’t know. He looked like me, Isabelle. It was me.”

Isabelle was all business as she stalked over to the nearest computer terminal. “Can you think of anything else?”

Raphael strained his mind. The blade glinted against Simon’s throat. Simon’s wide, terrified eyes stared back at him, pleading with him. His own face distorted with hatred as he mocked his mortality, exposing it for what it was. He grimaced.

“The blade was silver, hand-crafted, but not a Shadowhunter weapon.”

Isabelle nodded and turned the monitor so Raphael could see. “This was the last case Simon worked on.”

The left side of the screen showed a picture of a white woman in her thirties with long, dark blonde hair and tawny eyes. A set of tusks protruded from her bottom lip. Next to her picture was her basic information.

Andrea Kowalczyk, born 1924 in Krakow, Poland. The tusks were her demon mark and she had been barely a blip on the radar of the Clave prior to the last couple of days. She was suspected of summoning Shax demons to eliminate the current High Warlock of Queens. Simon took her down, and the Clave had brought her in for questioning.

“We had to release her this morning due to lack of solid evidence,” Isabelle said. Her lips tightened as she stared at the image. “You think it could be her?”

Raphael frowned. Something about it didn’t make sense. “I don’t know.”

Isabelle’s eyes narrowed. “There’s one way to find out. Stillwater!”

The cranky Shadowhunter who had escorted Raphael into the building jumped. “Yes, ma’am?”

“Cancel my meetings and tell Aline and Helen I won’t make it for lunch. I’m heading out.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m coming with you.” Raphael moved quickly to fall into step beside her.

Isabelle came to a screeching stop and placed a hand on his chest. “No, you’re not.”

“Whoever did this to Simon was wearing my face,” he snarled.

“I get that,” Isabelle snapped, “but I am going out there to confront a warlock who hired demon assassins to kill one of her own kind and kidnapped a highly trained vampire deputy of the Clave. You are a squishy, mortal human, and I am not going to lose you, too. So, go home, or I swear I’m going to order the guards to put you in my office and keep you there until I get back.”

By the time she finished her speech, her chest was heaving. Her face had taken on a distinct shade of pink under the thick layer of pale makeup that she wore like an armored visor.

Raphael gritted his teeth and glared. There was nothing else he could do, but he refused to back down. “You can try,” he growled, “but you know I’m going to follow you as soon as you step out that door.”

Isabelle made an incoherent angry noise in her throat and barked. “Guards!”

Stillwater was right at Raphael’s elbow, clamping a firm hand around his arm. “I heard you, ma’am.”

Raphael watched Izzy storm out of the Institute, armed with nothing but her versatile electrum bracelet and a formidable aura of tightly leashed fury. That warlock bitch had no idea what was coming for her.

Once the door banged shut, Raphael allowed Stillwater to escort him to Isabelle’s office. The room had changed a lot since the days of Victor Aldertree. For one, Isabelle had replaced the torture chair with a set of modern, comfortable looking stuffed seats covered in bright, cheerful fabric.

The weird horse’s head on the fireplace mantel had been replaced with pictures of her friends and family. There was even a photo of Izzy and Raphael: a candid shot taken by his sister, Rosa, at the senior center. The desk was mostly empty, except for a landline phone, a modern flexible desk lamp, and a decorative tissue box on the corner.

Raphael snorted and collapsed into one of the cushy visitor chairs. He felt completely useless.

A knock at the door pulled him out of his morose thoughts. The door opened silently, and a short blonde woman with bright eyes and a greenish tint to her pale complexion stepped inside. Raphael recognized her as the woman who had helped Simon and him break out of the Gard and destroy Aldertree’s secret project to convert all Downworlders into Mundanes.

“It’s you,” she said in surprise. “Raphael, right?”

“Yeah,” he confirmed with a smile. “Helen?”

“Yeah.” She came in and closed the door behind her. “Wow. When they said some crazy Mundane broke through the perimeter wards and got sent to the Head’s office, I never thought it’d be you.”

Raphael’s smile froze. “Some crazy Mundane, huh?”

“Sorry.” Helen grimaced in discomfort, but the expression quickly changed as she swung herself into the seat next to him. “Is the other part true, too? Something happened to Simon? Is he okay?”

“I don’t know.” Raphael gnashed his teeth, welcoming the sharp pain that shot up his jaw. “The guy had a knife to Simon’s throat when he took him.” Raphael closed his eyes, saw the blade dig into Simon’s pale skin, quickly opened them again. “I have no idea where he is or if he’s okay.”

Warm fingers covered the back of his hand. Raphael jumped in surprise and looked down, dumbfounded by the simple gesture of comfort he had extended to others a million times since he had joined the seminary. Helen squeezed his hand once before she pulled back.

“He’s going to be okay,” she said with conviction. “From what I hear, he’s become a superb fighter. I’m sure—" 

“Simon?” Raphael huffed. “Simon Lewis? The boy who would stumble over his own feet just moving between the door and the couch.” He furrowed his brows. “I guess half-Seelies can fib.”

Helen narrowed her eyes and smirked. “Wouldn’t you like to know? Anyway, Simon has spent the last year training under Jace Herondale. He’s probably one of the best young fighters we have.”

Raphael felt sick to his stomach. If what Helen said was true, Simon had let himself be taken to protect him. That somehow made things so much worse. If Simon had fought, he could have gotten away. He would have been safe now instead of captive somewhere with a knife at his throat.

“You really care about him, don’t you?” Helen’s quiet voice barely made it over the blood rushing in his ears. “You know, I thought there was something more between you two when we met at the Gard.”

Raphael opened his mouth, the instinctive denial at the tip of his tongue. Instead, he found himself looking into Helen’s open, compassionate features and said the only thing that wasn’t a lie and didn’t require him to spill more truth than he could handle. 

“It’s complicated.”

“Of course, it is.” Helen smiled. She settled more comfortably in her chair and pointed an elegant finger at the bruise on his jaw. “I bet that’s complicated, too. Wanna tell me about it?”

“Not particularly,” Raphael muttered.

Helen’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “You know, Simon has been acting strangely for a couple of days. Do you know anything about that?”

Raphael stiffened. He knew exactly what had prompted Simon to act that way, but he had no intention of divulging the information to a member of the Clave.

“It’s got nothing to do with Simon’s kidnapping.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I’m sure.” Raphael could feel himself slip back into the personality he had assumed as the official representative of a vampire clan dealing with the Clave. “Whoever took Simon had their own agenda, and it has nothing to do with whatever Simon was going through at the time.”

Helen pounced. “So, he did confess to you!”

Raphael scoffed. “I am not an ordained priest yet. I’m only a student at the seminary.” A cold smirk pulled up the corners of his mouth. “And Simon is Jewish.”

Helen dropped back into her chair with a pout. Then she smacked her hands on the squishy armrests and stood up. “Suit yourself.” She walked to the door and paused with her hand on the doorknob. “You’ll probably be here a while. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything.”

“Thank you.”

Raphael thought their conversation was over once Helen stepped through the door, but she poked her head back into the office.

“Isabelle keeps a copy of Simon’s YA novel in the bottom drawer on the right, in case you get bored.” 

She retreated quickly and closed the door before Raphael could say anything in response.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here's where the torture bits start. I'm not sure where on the scale of graphic and gruesome this falls, so if you have a hard time with this sort of thing, maybe skim and skip? The gist is, the kidnapper is exacting revenge for something Simon didn't do the way he was supposed to in the past. 
> 
> Let me know what you think. Kudos are love and feedback helps me improve.
> 
> ###### 

Simon woke up in white-hot pain. His whole body felt like it was burning or submerged in ice-water, maybe both at the same time. The sky above him was a bright, cloudless gray; the light stung his eyes. He tried to curl up, but he couldn’t move. Something rough was wrapped tightly around his arms, legs, and the base of his neck, keeping him trapped in a crucifix position on a hard surface. Twisting his head, he could just make out the thick, obsidian cords ensnaring him from his wrists halfway up to his elbows.

“Help!” He tried to scream, but it came out as barely a whisper.

“You’re awake.”

The sound of Raphael’s voice made him want to cry in relief. Simon opened his mouth to speak, but the cord around his neck tightened and cut off his air supply. If he wasn’t a vampire, he would be suffocating. His eyes widened, panic crawling through his burning nerves at the thought that Raphael might be restrained in the same way.

“Finally.” Raphael’s face appeared in Simon’s line of sight. “There’s no point in doing this when you’re not conscious to feel it.” The angelic expression on his features did not reach the demonic glare in his eyes.

Simon choked and struggled against his bonds, trying to look away. This was not Raphael. This was the impostor who had kidnapped him from Raphael’s church. The snare around Simon’s neck tightened again, crushing his throat. He closed his eyes. A gentle finger trailed ever so lightly across his forehead down along his temple and over his cheek, leaving a trail of fire in its wake.

“I am going to hurt you.” Raphael’s voice was so close his warm breath ghosted over Simon’s lips. “I am going to carve you, and burn you, and poison you, and rip you to pieces limb by limb.”

Simon tried to withdraw from the voice. He tried to focus on anything else. Even the icy-hot pain flaring along his nerves was preferable to listening to Raphael’s voice uttering those terrifying words. He couldn’t smell anything because he couldn’t breathe, and he didn’t dare to open his eyes. Fire crackled somewhere in the distance. Simon tried to focus on the sound.

“I’m going to drain you,” Raphael’s voice boomed right next to his ear. Simon choked, unable to emit a scream. “Until you whither and crumble into ash and dust, and, all the while, I will wear the face of the one you love.”

Simon shivered. Hot tears leaked from his tightly shut eyes; they burned where they crossed the trail the finger had drawn along his temple. His mind clung desperately to the truth that this was not Raphael.

“You will suffer until you go insane, and when I finally let you die, you will go to hell believing he was the one who sent you there.”

It wasn’t Raphael. It was not Raphael. It wasn’t him.

“Maybe then you will know how I feel.”

Harsh fingers tore through the buttons on his shirt and splayed it open. A cold palm slid down the center of his chest. The pin point of something hard pushed into his sternum and slowly, carefully, cut through the layers of skin in a razor thin line, liquid like acid.

Simon’s eyes and mouth ripped open in a silent scream. The pain was worse than holy-water, worse than sunlight before he had become a Daylighter, worse even than the agony of being engulfed in Heavenly Fire.

Through it all, Raphael’s voice kept rumbling in his ear, calm and cruel, as the vicious blade carved pattern after pattern into Simon’s chest.

“I’m going to make you pay, traitor. You’re going to feel every ounce of pain you caused with your stupid, selfish cowardice. I’m going to make you regret your foolish choice to give it up, make you pay for everything.”

Tears streamed freely from Simon’s eyes, spilling more precious blood. If only he could, he would have voluntarily turned into a pile of ash to escape from the torment.

“You were supposed to protect her,” Raphael said, his voice thick and quivering with tears.

The blade pierced Simon between the ribs, drove deep, and twisted.

As his vision grew mercifully dim, Simon thought he saw brilliant, jewel-colored butterflies dancing in the air above him. He wished he could join them and fly away.


	7. Chapter 7

When the door to the Head’s office finally opened again, Raphael burst out of his chair, dropping the book in the process.

“What’s the news?” he asked before the person had even poked their head inside.

Isabelle stepped into her office with an unreadable, hard expression on her face. A scratch marred her forehead above her left eyebrow. Her dress was crumpled and frayed.

“It wasn’t the warlock,” Isabelle said as she closed the door behind her. “She had no idea who Simon was. There was no knife. And when I asked her about the quiver-root she laughed in my face, said she couldn’t get her hands on it even if she was High Warlock of Queens.”

Raphael gritted his teeth. He wasn’t completely surprised, but a part of him had hoped – prayed even – that the warlock was responsible and that Isabelle would return with Simon no worse for wear.

“Are you sure?”

Isabelle’s eyes were dark as coal and hard as flint. “I all but knocked her tusks out of her face. She said if we want to find whoever took him, all we have to do is figure out who still has enough clout to call in favors from the Seelies.”

Raphael frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I have no idea.” Isabelle huffed out a breath and crossed over to the small liquor cabinet in the corner. She poured herself a generous helping of port wine, filled a second glass and offered it to Raphael. “But I’m going to take a shower, dress up in something extra pretty, and then I’m going to go down to the Shakespeare Garden and ask Meliorn.”

“All right.” Raphael accepted the glass and took a sip. “This time, I’m coming with you.” When Isabelle opened her mouth to protest, he cut her off with a look. “It’s Meliorn. He’s not going to try to kill me. As I recall, we agreed on several divisive matters while we represented our people at council meetings.”

Raphael hoped Meliorn had not forgotten that Raphael has sided with him when the Seelie warrior had called for the death of Clary Fairchild at a secret Downworlder meeting during the war against Morgenstern. As much as Raphael had known it would disappoint Isabelle and Simon to lose Clary, he had no regrets about that decision. The self-absorbed redhead had caused far more trouble for the Downworld community than she had ever helped to solve.

Isabelle pursed her lips and glared at him for a long moment. Then she downed her glass in one shot and placed it back on the bar with a harsh clank. “Fine.”

“Good.” Raphael smiled. “Can I trust you enough to wait here, or do I need to come back to your room with you?”

“I don’t know,” Isabelle said with a weary sigh, dragging a tired hand down the side of her face. “Are you offering to wash my back?”

Raphael choked on the last sip of his drink and spilled some over his hand.

“I was kidding, Raphael.”

He breathed a sigh of relief.

Isabelle smirked. “Mostly, anyway.” 

They left the Institute thirty minutes later, took a taxi to Central Park, and walked the last stretch to the Shakespeare Garden, which was connected to the Seelie Realm through a magical entrance hidden within a shady copse of trees.

The gates were firmly closed.

Isabelle pulled out her stele and drew a rune into the air that sent a fire message in a burst of sparks.

Not much later, Meliorn stepped out of the entrance. He was alone and dressed in full Seelie armor, wielding an elaborately decorated shield and a tall spear with a wide blade at the tip. His long black hair was tied back in thick braids, exposing the crescent scar on the left side of his face and the metal studded edges of his pointy ears. Thick black markings framed his dark brown eyes. His aquiline nose had suffered a recent fracture, and his beard looked curiously frayed and patchy for a race that prided itself on their beauty.

“Isabelle,” he said in a mellifluous whisper. “What a welcome surprise.”

Raphael narrowed his eyes as the puzzle pieces started to fit together in his mind.

“Meliorn.” Izzy stepped forward and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I wish this was a social visit, but something’s happened. We need your help.”

Raphael had raised his hand to stop her, but it was too late.

Meliorn pushed her back. “That’s why you’re here?” He shook his head and twisted his lips in a grimace of disappointment and ire. “Shadowhunters. This is why we never put faith in the accords. No matter how much you profess to care about protecting the Downworlders, in the end, you always return to your selfish ways.”

“Meliorn, what are you talking about?” Isabelle was utterly confused.

Raphael stepped forward and addressed the issue she had apparently failed to notice.

“Who are you at war with?” he asked bluntly. 

“Raphael?” Meliorn actually did a double-take and looked at Raphael as if he was a particularly odd bird that had landed at the scene by accident. “You look … different.”

“Thanks.” Raphael brushed the comment aside. “Now tell me, who are you fighting? I thought the Downworld community has been at peace since Jonathan Morgenstern was defeated.”

Meliorn’s face darkened at the name and he drew himself up to his full height. “And as a Mundane, you can be forgiven for that ignorant assumption.” He raised his thick, slanted brows and pointedly turned his head to look at Isabelle.

Isabelle recoiled in shock. “What happened?”

“Jonathan Morgenstern killed our Queen,” Meliorn stated as a matter of fact. “Since then, the Seelie Realm has been at war, trying to determine her successor.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?!” Isabelle’s voice cracked.

“It is not in our nature to ask for assistance from the Clave.” 

“Then how can you be mad I didn’t offer?”

“Isabelle,” Raphael said calmly, placing a hand on her arm. “We’re not here to start a fight.”

“I know, but Simon—“

Meliorn’s brows furrowed as he looked between the two of them. “Your Daylighter?”

Raphael nodded. “Somebody kidnapped him from my church. Somebody with access to quiver-root.” 

Meliorn made a speculative noise in his throat. “It appears Simon may have crossed the wrong ... person.”

Raphael’s eyes narrowed.

Isabelle pounced before he could say anything. “Do you know who? If you do, and you don’t tell us, Meliorn, I swear—" 

“Isabelle!” Raphael pulled sharply on her arm. No Downworlder had ever taken threats from a Shadowhunter with grace.

The Seelie warrior tilted his head and regarded them with a mixture of exasperation and resignation. “I don’t know, and it is of little consequence to me. This war is tearing my people apart, and we Seelies have neither the time nor the interest to deal with anyone else’s wants or needs. If you Shadowhunters ever bothered to look beyond the borders of your own petty dominion, you would have noticed that all trade into and out of the Seelie Realm has ceased months ago.” 

Isabelle shook her head, refusing to be brushed off. “There has to be someone we can speak to. Meliorn, please—“

“The Seelie Realm has closed its borders and warded all entrances against Shadowhunter and Downworlder alike. Anyone with demon or angel blood who is caught trespassing will be executed on sight.” Meliorn glanced at Raphael. “There is nothing I can do to help you.”

“Meliorn!”

“Goodbye Isabelle.” Meliorn nodded at Raphael. “Mundane.”

Raphael almost laughed. Instead, he nodded his head in turn. “Thank you.”

The gate to the Seelie Realm banged shut behind Meliorn, leaving Raphael and Isabelle standing alone in the cozy grove in the middle of Central Park.

Isabelle whirled around and smacked his arm hard enough to leave a bruise. “What the hell did you thank him for?”

Raphael rubbed the sore spot on his bicep and started to walk away. “I’ll tell you when we’re back at the Institute. I’m also going to need you to send a fire message to Alicante.”

Back in her office, Isabelle did not react well once Raphael had finished explaining his plan to her.

“You can’t be serious.”

“It’s the only way,” he insisted. “You heard Meliorn. Neither a Downworlder nor a Shadowhunter can get in. The only ones they’re not warding against are Mundanes, because most of them couldn’t find an entrance to the Seelie Realm if someone handed them a map.”

“This is a bad plan, Raphael.” Isabelle shook her head fiercely. “We don’t even know for sure that Simon’s there!”

“Actually, we do,” he insisted between gritted teeth. “Quiver-root spoils in under a week. It can’t be preserved. It only grows in the Wander Woods, and we were just informed that the Seelies haven’t traded with anyone in months. That means the only people with access to it are Seelies. Simon’s there, and I’m the only one who can go get him.”

“How are you going to get him when you won’t even be able to navigate the Wander Woods?”

“That’s where I’m hoping Magnus will help. Now could you please send him a message?”

They had already wasted precious hours chasing after the wrong person and then having to backtrack here to regroup after their conversation with Meliorn. Every minute they spent arguing about this was another minute that Simon was held captive somewhere in the Seelie Realm with a deadly blade at his throat.

“It still doesn’t even make sense,” Isabelle continued to argue as she pulled out her stele. “What would the Seelies want with Simon? He doesn’t even have the Mark of Cain anymore.”

Raphael let a frustrated growl escape from his throat and burst into a string of colorful expletives, entreating her to just shut up and do it already.

“Don’t you cuss at me in Spanish,” she snapped, slashing her stele in angry swirls through the air. “You know I understand every word, and I am not going to sink to the level of bickering with you in my third language just so you can have the upper hand.”

Raphael glowered. Isabelle glowered right back.

He relented and apologized sincerely for cussing at her. She relented and assured him he was forgiven.

“I just,” she said with a frustrated sigh, tears glistening in her eyes. “I can’t lose you too.”

Raphael didn’t bother to point out that they hadn’t spoken in months. He understood exactly how she felt and probably knew better than she did herself why she felt that way.

“Come here,” he said quietly, holding out his hand.

She stepped into his arms and wrapped herself around him, smothering his face against her chest. Raphael hugged her back and thanked God he was Mundane and no longer suffering the temptation to drink her blood as her spicy sweet scent swallowed him whole.

“Am I interrupting something?”

Magnus Bane stood in front of them, one elegant eyebrow raised in inquiry as he wagged a heavily bejeweled finger tipped with shiny black nail polish between them. He sported his usual fabulous style: a heavily embroidered velvet coat over tight-fitting black slacks. His spiky midnight-colored hair was highlighted with purple streaks. Behind him glowed the swirling orange portal he had created in the middle of Isabelle’s office.

Isabelle released Raphael, and he rose from his perch against her desk to greet his old friend.

“Magnus.”

“Raphael, my boy.” He went from one hug to the next as Magnus pressed a kiss to his temple and wrapped him in a tight embrace. “You really ought to write more.”

Even as the warlock scolded him, Raphael could feel a tingle of magic ghost along his jaw with the gentle brush of a thumb. The pain in his cheek was gone. He chuckled against Magnus’s shoulder.

“It’s not like Idris is part of the official postal system,” he said defensively.

“You know what I mean.” Magnus smacked him good-naturedly, clunky silver rings thumping against his back. Then he pulled away to look at him. “Now, what is it that you need so urgently it warrants a fire message from the Head of the New York Institute?”

Raphael took a deep breath and released it. “I need to break into the Seelie Realm and rescue Simon.”

Magnus laughed. Then he recoiled in horror. “You’re not joking.”

Raphael shook his head. “He’s been kidnapped by a Seelie, and they’ve locked their borders to anyone with angel or demon blood. I’m the only one who can go after him.”

Magnus didn’t say anything as he looked past Raphael at Isabelle.

“Magnus.” Raphael tugged on the older man’s sleeve the way he had done a thousand times when he was just a freshly turned child of the night, trying to figure out how to live with being damned. “Please.”

“Come with me.”

Magnus wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him through the portal. When they stepped back out on the other side, they were in Magnus’s penthouse apartment, overlooking the gleaming adamas towers guarding the City of Glass.

“We’re in Alicante?” Raphael said breathlessly.

“Eh,” said Magnus with a wibble-wobble of his hand as he sauntered off to make drinks. “Technically this apartment occupies its own extra-dimensional space that just happens to overlap with an available area within the city limits. I’ve been here six months and some Council members are still having apoplectic fits about it. It’s quite amusing, really.”

Raphael accepted his drink with a small chuckle. Magnus hadn’t changed one bit since they had last seen each other.

“How’s Alec?” he asked, strictly to be polite.

“He’s fine. Busy. Fighting the good fight, trying to get Downworlders universally accepted into the Shadowhunter stratum. It’s exhausting. Now, stop trying to avoid the subject. Why would I help you go on a suicide mission?”

Raphael sighed and hung his head. He didn’t know how to explain it without sounding like a fool. He raised his eyes to meet Magnus’s feline glare.

“It’s Simon,” he said hopelessly.

Magnus barely blinked. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“He went to Edom for you.”

“Correction, he went to Edom for Clary. She went for Jace. He went for Alec who went for me.”

“He’s a friend.”

“You are the closest thing I have to a son,” Magnus barked fiercely.

Raphael set his jaw and stared down the only man he had ever viewed as a father. “If you’re not going to help me, I’ll find someone else.”

Magnus’s nostrils flared and his fingers clenched tightly around the salt-frosted martini glass in his hand. “You are determined to do this.” A statement, not a question.

“I am.”

Magnus threw the glass across the room and hurled a blast of magic after it, making it shatter and disappear in a shower of sparks. Then he stalked off into the main bedroom.

Raphael trailed after him, not sure whether to apologize or persist. He had never meant to hurt Magnus, but he needed to save Simon. As he crossed the threshold, he saw Magnus take something off a display shelf and hold it close to his chest.

Raphael’s human ears were unable to hear what Magnus muttered under his breath, but when he turned around, his eyes had taken on their demon form, bright yellow with slit pupils like those of a cat.

“Take this,” he said, holding out a long wavy iron dagger that glowed with residual magic. “Once you enter the Seelie Realm, keep it in your hand, do not let it go, no matter what.”

Raphael’s eyes widened as he recognized the weapon Magnus had given him. It was the dagger with which Magnus’s mother had taken her own life. “I can’t take this.”

“You’ll bring it back to me,” Magnus said with complete conviction. “As long as you do not let it go.”

Raphael nodded. “I won’t.”

“I’m also going to give you a potion so you won’t need to eat or sleep for a few days.” Magnus brushed past him into the room he used as a potions laboratory. “And salt. Don’t forget to take a bag of salt, in case you need to buy yourself time to run.”

Magnus was all over the place, flitting back and forth like an enormous black and silver moth as he kept finding things to add to the list and push into Raphael’s hands. When Raphael finally couldn’t take it anymore, he stepped right into the other man’s path and hugged him tight.

Magnus vibrated with worry and magic, hugging Raphael back just as fiercely. “Don’t throw away your life, angel. Not for this. Not when you’ve only just started.”

“I won’t,” he said, even though that was exactly what he was doing. He stood very little chance of surviving his plan, but he had to try to save Simon.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No animals were harmed in the making of this chapter. Seriously, though, there is some animal on human violence here. Also, blasphemy, I think. Do I need to warn for blasphemy? 
> 
> Let me know what you think. The good, the bad, the ugly :)
> 
> Oh, and I'm taking some liberties with the Seelie Realm. While I'm going mostly off the TV show, I've added my own twists and landmarks.
> 
> ###### 

The sun was beginning to set over the Manhattan skyline when Raphael and Isabelle set foot onto one of the concrete bridges in Central Park. The stream below it guarded another entrance to the Seelie Realm. Raphael stepped up to the iron guardrail and looked at the churning water with trepidation. Isabelle’s hand on his arm pulled him back.

“You don’t have to do this.” She sounded unbearably young and uncertain.

Raphael smiled. “You would do it in a heartbeat if you could take my place.”

Isabelle dropped her gaze and didn’t say anything. When she looked back up, there was a strange shimmer in her eyes. She pressed something into his palm: a small hard object.

“His favorite pick,” she said as Raphael stared at the flat blue teardrop of plastic in his hand. “It’s the smallest personal object I could find.”

“Thank you.”

Raphael doused the guitar pick in the tracking potion Magnus had given him. He handed the empty vial to Isabelle. Then he pulled out another vial and swallowed its vile contents in a single gulp. The slime went down like cold gruel, but its effects presented almost immediately. Raphael felt refreshed and sated as if he had rested eight hours and eaten a really good meal.

Isabelle took the second empty vial from him and buttoned up his coat. “They’re going to try to disorient you. Don’t touch or smell anything, and don’t kill anything, not even a bug, no matter how much they irritate you.” She grabbed his lapels and straightened them, then straightened them again, and then she just gripped them tightly, holding on. “Stay away from the vines and don’t get near the swamp. If you hear Simon’s voice call for you, don’t trust it. Don’t trust anything you didn’t bring with you.”

Isabelle looked at him with apprehension carved into every line of her face. When Raphael placed his hands over hers, her fingers were ice-cold.

“Come back to me,” she demanded, clutching his hands. “Both of you. Come back to me.”

Raphael smiled reassuringly despite the cold fear compressing his chest. “I’ll do my best.”

Then she kissed him.

Raphael was too stunned to do anything. Her lips tasted waxy from her lipstick and salty with tears as she pressed them tightly against his mouth. It only lasted a moment before it was over. When she pulled back, there was a strange warm pressure around his left wrist. Isabelle had put her bracelet on him.

“Come back to me,” she said again. “Find Simon and bring both of you home.”

He nodded and pulled away. Isabelle stepped back and watched him quietly as he knelt down and performed the small pagan ritual to appeal for the passage of a human into the Seelie Realm.

Once the candle blew out, Raphael climbed over the iron guardrail and stared down into the churning water below him. He had no idea if his request had been granted. There was no sign to let him know either way. If the Seelies had denied him, he would crash into the shallow stream and still be no closer to rescuing Simon.

Raphael closed his eyes, let go of the railing, and fell forward with his arms spread wide.

He opened his eyes to a dull gray sky that loomed strangely empty without the blinding white orb of the sun. The air was warm and humid, and it smelled like burning sage and witch hazel. Ephemeral white flower petals floated before his eyes, dancing like snowflakes in the breeze. Almost imperceptible, the soft tinkling chime of bells tickled his ears.

Raphael jumped to his feet, quickly reached into his coat pockets, and breathed a sigh of relief. Magnus’s dagger and Simon’s guitar pick were still there.

He took out the pick in his left hand and held it up balanced on the tips of his index and middle finger. Everything inside him willed the small piece of plastic to move. He bit down on a cry of joy when the tip of the teardrop shape slowly turned to the left. It pointed toward a thick line of densely-grown evergreens.

“Deeper into the forest it is,” Raphael muttered.

He returned the guitar pick to his left pocket, keeping his fingers curled around it. His other hand kept a firm grasp around the hilt of Magnus’s dagger in his right pocket.

The forest was noisy with the sibilant whisper of rustling leaves and the high-pitched whistle and chirrup of birds hiding in the dense canopy. Raphael watched his steps, hyper-aware of everything that skittered along the ground. He only set his feet where they wouldn’t crush a small creature or snap a growing root. Every so often, he would remove the pick, balance it on two fingertips, and follow the direction it indicated.

He stopped at the edge of a small clearing. The grassy spot was drenched in the ominous gray light that broke through the thick tree cover. In the center of the glade grew a circle of mushrooms. Raphael looked at them with unease.

He removed Simon’s guitar pick from his pocket. With any luck, it would point him in a direction away from the fairy circle. 

A bright yellow bird, no bigger than a lemon, swooped across his hand. Tiny claws scraped his skin, grasping for the pick.

Raphael stared after the bird, heart pounding. He had reacted just in time; it had almost snatched the pick from him. The back of his fingers itched. When Raphael looked down, there were six tiny scratches across his knuckles. He resisted the urge to lick the wounds and raised his hand again.

The same bird soared through the air, emitting a high-pitched series of tweets, and landed on his closed fist. Raphael narrowed his eyes at the small creature.

“Go away.”

He moved his fist down and back up, trying to shoo the bird into flight. The little fiend dug its pin-prick claws deeper into Raphael’s skin and released a sharp tweet. Round black eyes stared at him with hatred; it blinked.

“Ouch.”

The bird had drilled its thin, short beak into the soft spot between Raphael’s index finger and thumb. Raphael tightened his grip. It pecked again, and again, more insistently. Raphael shook his fist, but the bird wouldn’t let go. Isabelle’s warning about killing anything rang in his head as he stood perfectly still, trying to shake off the bird without harming it, too paranoid to move because he might accidentally step on something.

The bird pecked and pecked, breaking his skin. Raphael was helpless to do anything but flinch and watch the blood drip from his hand as the tiny yellow warbler kept hacking away at him. His hand was throbbing, but he kept his fist tightly closed.

“You’re not getting it,” he growled. “Not if you peck for the rest of your spiteful little life.”

Baleful black eyes glared at him. It dug sharp claws into his skin and took sudden flight, wings flapping sharply, directly at Raphael’s face. He turned his head and buried his face against his shoulder, terrified to remove the hand he had clenched around the dagger to protect himself.

The nasty creature disappeared into the canopy. Raphael breathed a sigh of relief and started to walk in a direction perpendicular to the fairy circle. He grimaced at the sight of his mangled hand and gritted his teeth against the stinging pain as he slid it carefully into his coat pocket. His fingers remained curled in a tight fist, protecting the precious guitar pick.

Raphael kept his eyes trained on the ground. As he walked away from the circle, the high-pitched chirping of the birds grew quieter and eventually stopped. The wind picked up and carried with it the sound of flapping wings. Branches cracked in the trees above him. A loud, grating caw broke the silence. Then another, and another, until the trees around him were filled with the harsh, rasping cries of countless crows. Raphael did not look up. He kept walking, eyes on the ground, hoping every step he took didn’t carry him further away from Simon.

A black shadow swooped over his head, brawny wings batting his hair. Raphael ducked his head and walked faster. A second shadow zoomed past, clipping his forehead. A third and a fourth shot across behind his back, sharp talons grazing his shoulders. He started to run.

The huge birds pelted into him from all sides. Brutal talons grasped and tore into his coat. Large curved beaks snapped and hacked at his arms, his shoulders, the back of his neck. Raphael stumbled. His face drove into the detritus unprotected. His hands were trapped under him inside his coat pockets.

The crows buried him in a flurry of wings and beaks and talons. Raphael curled up, hiding his face in the dirt, protecting himself as much as he could from the onslaught. His face was wet and throbbed in time with his pounding heart. His body was on fire. Everywhere their talons and beaks broke through his clothes, they pulled away with flesh and blood. Unlike the spiteful little warbler, these crows were going to hack him into pieces.

Raphael curled up tighter and prayed.

The crows were relentless, trapping him in a tornado of beating wings, ripping him apart. He forced himself to move. Choking down a scream, he pulled his mangled fist from his pocket and dragged it across the rough ground.

His bloody thumb and forefinger slipped on the gold chain around his neck, but he managed to pull it free without losing his grip on the guitar pick trapped under his three remaining fingers. The shining pendant dropped out of his collar onto the dirt before his eyes. He picked up the golden cross, a gift from the priest at his church to celebrate his entry into the seminary, and brought it to his lips.

Slowly, painfully, he pushed himself up onto his knees. He prayed for strength, and then he prayed to stay conscious, and finally, he just repeated the same words in his mind as he staggered onto his feet and started to walk. He swore to himself, over and over, he would never give up. 

Raphael held the cross between his forefinger and thumb, dividing his focus between it and the ground before him. The crows whirled around him. Sharp slicing pain tore through him. He cried out. Crimson blood gushed from his fingers, drenching his mangled hand. The cross was gone.

The rasping caw of a crow sounded like mocking laughter in his ears. It grew louder. A black shadow swooped past his face, gold glinting inside sharp talons. Raphael’s vision blurred as he stared at the thief.

“Choke on it.”

The crow erupted into mocking laughter again. Its croaking call cut off sharply when another bird barreled into it, grasping for the shiny cross. Raphael chuckled. A third crow joined the fighting duo, and before long, the rest of the murderous flock had turned on their own, fighting over the treasure. As the crow in possession took off, flying fast and high to escape its brethren, the others followed.

Raphael wiped the tears off his face. He hunched over and opened his hand, balancing the guitar pick on bleeding fingers. The tip of the teardrop moved, and Raphael sobbed in relief. It pointed in the same direction he had already been headed. He cradled the pick to his chest and kept walking.

Every step hurt. His wounds throbbed and burned, and even the effect of Magnus’s potion didn’t counter the leaden weight of exhaustion dragging him toward the ground. The air had turned cold, and the humidity felt like a wet blanket around him. Raphael shook his head to clear it from the cobwebs and to get rid of the white noise in his ears.

Instead of dissipating, the hum grew louder and sharpened into a harsh buzz. Raphael snapped his head toward the source of the sound. Eyes wide, he froze in terror.

A gigantic swarm of wasps shimmered through the air, tightly segmented bodies swaying like deadly dust motes on the breeze. The swarm consolidated into a cannonball and shot toward him.

Raphael hurtled through the trees, branches striking him like lashes from a whip. The air burned with every breath he sucked into his lungs. The buzzing roared in his ears, getting louder, closer.

He broke through a line of trees into a morass of tall reeds and stumbled ankle deep into sluggish, dirt-brown water before he realized what had happened. The swarm was still behind him. Left with no choice, Raphael pushed forward, took a deep breath, and submerged himself in the foul-smelling swamp.

He stuck the guitar pick in his mouth, removed his other hand from his pocket, laid the dagger flat against his arm, and pulled his coat over the blade.

His bones felt like they were breaking with every cumbersome stroke he took to move through the water. He saw nothing but brackish green. His lungs burned. His ears rang. He pushed forward five more agonizing strokes before he dared to dip his head above the water.

The first breath went down his throat like shards of ice. The wasps were gone. He could see that he had gotten a long way from the tall reeds. When he turned around, he was still a long way from the other shore.

Raphael swam until he couldn’t feel his legs. He promised he wouldn’t give up, but he could feel his body start to betray him. He had almost reached the edge, his arm outstretched for the next stroke when his strength gave out. He swallowed a mouthful of brackish water, almost swallowed the guitar pick with it, as his face slipped below the surface.

A cold, hard body slithered around his left wrist. If he hadn’t been so exhausted, he would have tried to shake it off.

Isabelle’s necklace had extended into the shape of a snake. The tip of its tail curled tightly around Raphael’s arm as its rounded head struck forward, weaving across the surface of the swamp and onto the shore until it reached the foot of an aspen tree near the bank. The snake curled around the slender white trunk, tightening its hold ever so slowly, and dragged Raphael toward it. 

He reached the tree crawling on his stomach and collapsed beneath it. His eyes closed on the vibrant yellow leaves quaking in the wind high above.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Graphic torture in this one, people. Mind the tags. Feedback would be greatly appreciated. Let me know what you think.
> 
> On a side note: I don't snap, insta, tweet or tumble, so if you like this story and want to rec it somewhere, feel free to do so.
> 
> ###### 

Simon felt weightless, insubstantial as a feather drifting down through blue skies to land between a pair of muddy running shoes on the wet red bricks paved around a bus bench. Why was that image so familiar? 

His eyes snapped open with a scream.

“No cheating,” Raphael’s cold voice purred right next to his ear. “Stay with me, lover.”

A hard finger dug into one of his open wounds. The pain spread like broken safety glass, a web of icy shards across his chest. Simon screamed again.

“My queen screamed, too, when Morgenstern burned her.” The finger twisted inside his chest. “She died screaming, in a cloud of ash.”

Simon spluttered and sucked in a wet breath, trying to focus on anything other than the agony. “Yeah, I’m sure she deserved it.”

“Barely more than minced meat and you still have sass in you?”

There was the sharp click of a tongue, and Simon’s world turned white, then red, then black in front of his eyes as he screamed in pain. His mind desperately reached out for any shred of hope.

“They’ll come for me,” he whispered between shaking breaths and repeated it, faster, more insistently as the pain intensified.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Raphael’s voice was sugary sweet even as he dragged what felt like a hot poker across Simon’s hips. “Nobody’s coming for you.” The rod snapped sharply against his stomach. “We’re at war. All the gates are warded against angels and demons alike.” A gentle hand caressed Simon’s face, brushing away bloody tears in a mockery of compassion. “The only one who could come to save you is the one who’s going to kill you.” 

Simon closed his eyes and turned his face away from the unwelcome sight. He did not want to see the impostor’s face twisting Raphael’s features in a travesty of real emotion just to mess with his head some more. He was extremely aware and holding tight to the knowledge who was and, more importantly, who wasn’t doing this to him.

“Look at me,” the gentle fingers turned cruel, grasping Simon’s chin in a bruising grip to turn his face. “Open your eyes, or I will sew them open.”

Simon snapped his eyes open and glared into the soulless brown irises above him. “You couldn’t convince me you’re Raphael if you keep me here for a thousand years.”

He gathered a mouthful of cold blood and spat in the impostor’s face. The fake picked up a shred of Simon’s torn shirt, wiped off the blood, and shoved the dirty fabric into Simon’s mouth.

“We’ll see about that.”

Simon gagged. His eyes widened as his mouth and tongue began to burn and crumble to ash. The impostor pulled out the fabric just before Simon’s flesh could completely disintegrate.

“Ain’t holy-water a bitch?”

Simon panted between his burning lips, trying to hold his tongue as still as possible and not let it touch any other part of his mouth. He stared at the impostor with all the hatred and pain he felt and swore he would never give him what he wanted.

Raphael would never say “ain’t”. He would never call Simon “sweetheart” or “lover”, and he would never ever let anyone, least of all Simon, spit in his face.

The torture continued and Simon tried to escape the only way he could. He retreated into his mind, searching for safe places in beautiful memories.

He thought about the first time he and Izzy had gone to Taki’s diner and the way she had laughed when Maia presented them with “Crispy Wraith in Heavenly Fire”, a plate piled high with chicken wings barbecued in a fiery hot sauce.

He thought about Clary’s brilliant smile when she had sold one of her “Emotion” paintings at the gallery in the Village.

He thought about almost beating Jace in hand-to-hand combat.

He thought about actually beating Alec in target practice with a compound bow the last time Alec and Magnus had stopped by for a visit from Alicante.

He thought about being up on stage at the Hunter’s Moon, playing a set for a huge Downworld crowd who chanted for an encore when he was done.

He thought about Raphael kissing him in the dark boathouse, their bodies pressed so close he could feel Raphael’s chest move with every breath.

“Simon.” Raphael’s voice was hurried and barely more than a whisper. “Simon, wake up.”

“No.” Simon shook his head, trying to hold on to the vision in his mind. “No, no.”

“Simon, come on, I need you to work with me here.” Raphael sounded scared, maybe a little bit frustrated. “Come on.”

Simon opened his eyes. Raphael’s face was close, but not as close as before. His hair was disheveled and his clothes … They were the simple slacks and shirt he’d worn at the church and they looked rumpled. There was a bright purple bruise on his cheek.

A tight, hot feeling started to grow inside Simon’s stomach, but he still did not dare to believe what his eyes were telling him.

“What are you doing?” he asked cautiously.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Raphael asked sarcastically as he cut through the vines that bound Simon. “I’m getting you out of here.”

“Oh god, please let this be true,” Simon whispered to himself as Raphael helped him off the cold, bloodstained stone slab he had been tied to for heaven only knew how long. “But how do we know where to go?”

Raphael smiled. “Don’t worry, I’ve got it covered.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is far from over. Chapter 10 currently marks the halfway point. Mind all the tags above. This chapter has most of them represented and the end of it earns the E rating.
> 
> Kudos and Feedback are always appreciated. Drop me a line to let me know how I'm doing.
> 
> ###### 

The smell of warm bread and freshly brewed coffee woke Raphael from his sleep. He felt like he’d been passed out for days. The sun shone brightly into the room, trying to get through his closed eyes, but he was too comfortable and not nearly ready to get out of bed.

“Get up, sleepy head!” A lithe hand slapped his butt. “Especially if you want to have breakfast before we leave.”

Raphael shook himself awake and sat bolt upright, looking after Isabelle’s retreating back.

“What time is it?” he asked, even though he had a whole bunch of other unformed questions floating around his sleep-addled mind.

“Quarter past nine,” she said as she came back into the room with a cup of coffee in one hand and an everything bagel with cream cheese wrapped in a napkin in the other. “And you need to get in gear, or we’re going to be late, and I am not going to be late to my own wedding.”

He accepted the coffee and bagel with a string of curses and apologies. “I have no idea why I slept that long.”

“Because you were exhausted from the flight,” Isabelle said with a shrug. “And then you boys just had to go out for an impromptu stag night, anyway. And now here we are. Me running after everyone, trying to get you all to turn back from pumpkins into princes so we can be on time for my dream wedding when I should be all in a tizzy, getting cold feet, or turning into some sort of bridezilla over last minute alterations on my dress.”

“Your dress is perfect,” he said, having no idea what it looked like.

“Of course, it is.” Isabelle rolled her eyes. “It came from Magnus.” 

Raphael munched on his bagel and took a few healthy sips from his coffee. Both tasted like perfection in his mouth, making him forget what all the urgency was about.

“Come on!” Izzy bounced on the bed, nearly making him spill his coffee. “Hurry up. I’ve had your habit dry cleaned and pressed. Rabbi Berkowitz is meeting us down at the beach. Did you at least rehearse your part of the ceremony?”

“Relax.” Raphael huffed. “This isn’t my first interfaith wedding, you know?”

“I know, I know.” She ducked her head. “But it is mine, so I need it to be perfect.”

Raphael set his cup aside and captured her fidgeting hands with his. “I promise it’ll be perfect.” 

Isabelle pounced and almost knocked the bagel out of his hand as she smothered him with a bear hug.

“Thank you, Raphael. Thank you so much.” She pulled back and squeezed his free hand, looking at him with love and gratitude. “For everything. If it wasn’t for you, this day could have never happened.”

Raphael smiled, but something about her words tugged uncomfortably in the pit of his stomach.

“Now come on.” She used her hold on his hand to physically drag him out of bed.

“Hey! Hey!” He wrenched himself out of her grip and stumbled back, clutching the sheet to his chest as he chewed her out for immodesty because he was pretty much in his birthday suit, and it certainly wasn’t him she was marrying today, so this was not okay, and she’d be lucky if he didn’t make her go to confession before the wedding.

“Don’t you cuss at me in Spanish,” she sniped. “You know I understand every word.”

Raphael glared at her playfully and made a shooing motion with his hand. “Get out of here, so I can get dressed.” 

A little while later, everyone was assembled at the beach, wearing their Sunday best. A beautiful wooden Chuppah with a roof of purple anemones and yellow carnations and chrysanthemums took up the center of a small stage, ready for the ceremony. In front of the stage, rows of chairs had been placed on either side of a wide aisle. A vivid blue carpet stretched down the center aisle from the final row of chairs all the way up onto the stage. 

Rabbi Berkowitz was a rotund older gentleman whose face never quite managed to stay in focus when Raphael looked at it. Maybe he should get his eyes checked. They exchanged pleasantries until someone placed a cool hand on Raphael’s shoulder.

Simon looked dashingly handsome in a classic tuxedo. The giddy smile on his face and his uncontrolled bouncing eyebrows somehow didn’t deter from the overall appeal. 

“Ready?” Raphael asked with an involuntary smile of his own.

“Oh, yeah.” Simon agreed with a quick, jerky nod and leaned in to whisper in his ear. “I know what’s under her dress. I accidentally opened the package from Adam and Eve, and now I can’t decide what I want more: the cake or her. Actually, I want both at the same time, as soon as possible. Any chance you could skip a couple lines and get Rabbi Berkowitz to speed things up a bit?”

Raphael pulled back with a scandalized glare. “Simon!”

“Dude,” Simon said defensively and leaned back in. “Lace and white satin. We’re talking barely there. How do you expect me to stay cool?” 

Raphael stared at him so hard he almost went cross-eyed, struggling to keep from succumbing to the dark urge to smack Simon upside the head. “Fix your yarmulke,” he gritted out. “And wipe the drool off your chin before your Bubbie Helen sees you like this.”

“Oh, no. Where?” Simon’s eyes were wide as dinner plates as he tried to duck, look around, and follow Raphael’s instructions all at the same time.

“That’ll teach you,” Raphael muttered with a smirk.

“Bastard.”

“Are we ready?” Rabbi Berkowitz somehow managed to draw every syllable out to maximum capacity. 

“Yes.” Raphael clapped Simon’s shoulder. “I think we are.”

Isabelle’s three brothers had taken their places as the groomsmen while Clary, Simon’s sister, Becky, and Helen Blackthorn stood on the opposite side of the Chuppah in matching floral bridesmaid dresses.

Simon was accompanied down the aisle by Luke Garroway standing in for the groom’s parents. From the moment Luke stepped away from him, Simon fidgeted the whole time until he caught sight of Isabelle at the end of the long blue carpet. Then he jolted as if he’d been struck by lightning and stood frozen solid with a smitten grin on his face.

Raphael couldn’t blame him. Isabelle was a vision in her long white dress. Her face was covered by a sheer lace veil. She floated toward the altar between her mother and father and joined Simon before the Chuppah for the traditional circling of the groom.

Raphael and Rabbi Berkowitz took turns leading the couple and the assembled friends and family through the ceremony. Everything went smoothly, and the couple exchanged their vows without a hitch. Rabbi Berkowitz placed the glass in front of Simon’s foot, and Raphael gave his blessing to kiss the bride.

The moment Simon’s heel broke the glass, thunder tore through the air. Darkness swallowed the sunny beach. Raphael looked up, expecting rain clouds. The sky was a pitch-black vortex. He tried to warn the happy couple to hurry up.

They were kissing, but something wasn’t right. Simon’s arms were wrapped tightly around Isabelle’s waist. She was limp, her arms hanging languidly from her shoulders as she lay in Simon’s embrace. When Simon pulled away from the kiss, all Raphael could see was blood. Isabelle’s crimson lips overflowed with it. Simon’s face was covered in it from nose to chin, and, when he smiled, his fangs glistened with it. 

Raphael recoiled. There should be screaming. Why was nobody screaming? His gaze skittered over rows of empty chairs. Beside him, Rabbi Berkowitz had disappeared. The bridesmaids and groomsmen were gone. Above him, the flowers in the Chuppah withered and turned to ash. The storm picked up, gusting soot particles into the air around them, making it hard to breathe.

Simon was right in front of him, blood-smeared lips an inch away from Raphael’s face. The gaping void of his dilated pupils devoured his soft brown irises. His smile was beatific. 

Raphael closed his eyes. His heart battered his ribcage with angry, painful punches, demanding he do something. He tried to stay still.

“Take it,” Simon whispered, cold breath brushing against Raphael’s mouth.

Their lips met. Lightning struck. Blinding white oblivion swallowed them whole. Raphael felt the seconds stretch between each pounding heartbeat as the taste of blood and Simon scorched his senses like pure oxygen catching fire.

He opened his eyes. Isabelle stood in front of him, her dress white as snow, her lips red with blood, her long hair spilling over her shoulder in shining waves of ebony. Simon was behind her, holding her petite frame pressed against him with one hand around her throat and the other on her hip. Isabelle smiled blissfully and tilted her head toward Simon’s fingers below her jaw, exposing the fragile line of her neck.

Raphael’s mouth dropped open in shock and disbelief as he felt his fangs extend, aching with sudden hunger.

“It’s okay,” she purred as she reached up and placed a fragile hand on his cheek. “It’ll be our little secret.”

Her kiss tasted like broken promises and addiction. Raphael couldn’t stop. He couldn’t make himself pull away. His hand slipped from her wrist and dropped to her waist. Lace and satin tickled his fingers. When she pulled back, his head dropped to her shoulder. He watched the color fade from his hand where it rested on her skin, warm honey-brown turning ashen and cold. Raphael closed his eyes and sank his fangs into her neck. Dark, thick blood filled his mouth like spiced black treacle. Isabelle moaned. He pulled her closer. 

A firm hand clamped around the back of his neck and pulled him away to share a bloody kiss. Simon’s eyes stared him down as their tongues battled for dominance, hunger raging between them like a starving beast.

Isabelle sprawled in their embrace, her curves sheathed in a corset of bird-bone and gossamer thread. Lace and white satin, barely there. Simon released Raphael’s mouth to bury his face in her chest. Crimson flowed, saturating the fabric in a widening stain that sought its way to her core. Raphael sucked in the scent, flicked his tongue at the stain, caught the slippery fabric between his teeth, and tore it apart. A moan reverberated through both of them as he sank his fangs into the silk-soft skin underneath.

They devoured her alive. Pressed between their bodies, she writhed like a snake, like she was drowning, struggling to wrap her arms around both of them, grasping blindly to tangle her fingers in curly hair, find purchase against a heaving chest, thrusting hips, and wandering hands.

Their hands collided between her legs, sliding over slick, hot flesh. Simon entwined their fingers and guided them slowly, showing Raphael how to curl and thrust, how to make her moan, before he retreated, leaving Raphael’s fingers to continue their motion alone while Simon rubbed tight circles on her clitoris.

Isabelle came screaming, clutching their arms while they drank from her. Her blood was heady with the taste of her release.

The sluggish heat of intoxication pushed waves of need and longing through every cell of Raphael’s body. Smooth, strong hands kept him tethered, burning like sunshine, flowing like water along his skin. Long, bloody fingers curled around him, drove into him, spread him open, made him submit with a broken moan.

His body trembled as silk-slick heat enveloped him, pulling him into the dark depths of surrender while cold, solid-steel flesh split him apart and drove him down. Sharp fangs penetrated his skin and sank into the curve of his neck as blunt human teeth dug into his opposite shoulder. The rush of ecstasy pulled Raphael under and washed him away as his blood and seed spilled from him at the same time. 

Dark earth and darker blood flashed between the brilliant white of lightning. Isabelle’s pale fist punched through wet soil. Her face broke through the dirt, mouth drenched in blood, raven hair matted to her face as she fought her way to freedom, long white fangs bared in hunger.

Simon and Raphael pulled her into their arms, content to let her feed from them. Blood flowed like a river between the three as they drank and fucked and drank some more, fornicating among the dirt like animals, heedless of sin or consequence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Flowers have meanings and even in hallucinations, the truth will out.   
> Purple anemones symbolize fading hope and being forsaken, yellow carnations symbolize rejection and disappointment, and yellow chrysanthemums signify slighted love.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Graphic descriptions of pain and injury here. Also, lots of profanity. 
> 
> I recently did a word search and it turns out my version of Simon is a real potty mouth who's used the word "fuck" or its derivatives over 50 times throughout the story.
> 
> ###### 

Simon screamed his frustration into the darkness. His skin was on fire, every muscle tight against the stabbing hot sensations racing along his nerves. He should have never trusted his luck. How the hell would Raphael, a mundane seminary student, even get to the Seelie Realm to save him? Never mind that this was the last place Simon wanted him to be.

He closed his eyes and opened them again, still as blind as before. His surroundings felt tight around him. Simon brought one hand up close to his body and carefully pushed it outward. He got no further than a foot from his chest before his palm scraped against a warm, hard barrier.

Gravity told him he was standing on his feet with his back against a rough surface. He could hear insects scuttling on the ground.

The terror was instantaneous and real. Simon clenched his mouth shut, stopped breathing, and prayed he wouldn’t feel scarab beetles bite him and crawl under his skin. He was so not cut out for a Mummy remake.

His hearing sharpened tenfold the moment he stopped breathing. The scuttling became deafening until a louder noise replaced it. Three sharp, hollow taps, like someone knocking on a wooden door, pierced Simon’s ears. The insects stopped moving.

“Can you hear me, lover?” Raphael’s voice was no less cutting for being distorted by the barrier between them. “I’m sorry that I have to put you away for a while, but don’t worry, I’ll get back to you just as soon as I can.”

Simon banged his head against the hard surface behind him, trying to drown out the poisoned-honey voice.

“You see,” the impostor continued, “a little birdie told me there’s a visitor coming, and I wouldn’t want him to get in the way, so I’ll just be a moment, taking care of this, and then we can get back to the important things.”

“I fucking hate you!” Simon screamed at the top of his lungs.

“Oh, and please don’t bother trying to scream for help,” Raphael’s voice continued. “It’s pointless when I can’t hear you.” The sharp tap of knuckles on wood impacted at the height of Simon’s nose. “This beautiful treason timber only allows sound to travel inward, not out.” 

Simon roared. The bastard had put him in a tree. He was stuck in a fucking tree. He should be able to punch his way out of this. He reared back, jammed his elbow painfully into the wood behind him and slammed his fist forward with all his vampire strength.

His hand exploded with pain. He gagged at the overwhelming sensation: light-headed, nauseous, ears ringing. His hand throbbed. Something dripped cold and thick over the back of his knuckles. Simon quickly brought his fist up and sucked the blood back into himself.

“Fucking bitch,” he muttered against his fingers and closed his eyes in resignation.

The tree was too narrow to sit down, so he collapsed against the wall behind him in an awkward slump. The muscles in his legs burned from the effort.

“Now,” drawled the fake Raphael. “I’m just going to slip into something a little more appropriate for the situation.” Halfway through the sentence, the voice changed; its pitch rose, trading its throaty quality for a clear baritone.

“No.” Simon shook his head. “No. No. No.”

“How do I look?”

Simon banged his head against the wood behind him and shook it back and forth in denial.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Of course, you can’t see.” His own voice mocked him from outside the tree. “You’ll just have to take my word for it that I look perfect.” A pause. “Maybe a little too damsel in distress. We’ll see.”

Simon heard the sound of vines scraping roughly across the bark along the outside of the tree. He closed his eyes in the darkness and hoped that whoever was coming for him would be able to tell.

If it was Isabelle, she would know in a heartbeat. But Simon really hoped it wasn’t her if the impostor was ready to kill his rescuer.

Jace would probably be fooled by the fake. They had gotten closer over the past year, but it wasn’t like they spent a lot of time together outside the training room. He tried to think of anyone else from the Institute who might come for him.

Luke, maybe? Was he back from Alicante? Simon really hoped it was Luke. The man had years of experience over everyone else. He was like a father to Simon, so he’d know immediately that something wasn’t right, and if the bastard tried anything, Luke would probably kill him without getting seriously injured. 

“Simon!”

The voice made his heart clench in fear. Anxiety like he had never felt before grabbed him like a fist around his throat. The impostor couldn’t imitate two people at once, could he?

“Raphael?”

Simon heard his own voice rasp brokenly from outside the tree. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything to warn Raphael or protect him from what was happening right on the other side of the wooden barrier between them. The thick lump in his throat grew three sizes bigger, choked him to the point of tears in his eyes.

“What did he do to you?”

Simon winced at the pain and anger in Raphael’s voice. His mind tumbled over itself willing Raphael to hear him, somehow: It’s not me. It’s not me. It’s not me. It’s not me. He listened, helplessly, as Raphael moved closer, right up to the tree.

“I can’t believe it’s you,” Simon’s voice simpered breathily. “My hero.”

“You.”

There was a scuffle, then something dropped to the forest floor with a metallic thump. Someone grunted in pain. A large, solid weight slammed against the bark of the tree.

“That was not very smart,” the impostor said over the rasp of crawling vines. “Now look at where it’s gotten you.”

“Where is he?” Raphael demanded.

Simon started breathing with short, wrenching hiccups. For now, Raphael was alive.

“Close,” Simon’s doppelganger teased, “so very close, but you’ll never see him, never even know he’s there.”

“Why did you take him?”

Raphael was alive and barking demands like he was still a powerful vampire and not a helpless, fragile Mundane. How the hell had he even gotten into the Seelie Realm? Simon calmed his breathing and tried to figure out what was going on from listening to their conversation.

“Because, my dear, he caused the death of my queen. Her death, the war, every ounce of suffering that has come as a result: the responsibility for it all lies at your lover’s feet and stains those ghastly, ashen hands.”

“Don’t touch me. Stop pretending you’re him. Show me your true face.”

“Why, so I can make you feel more comfortable? I don’t think so.”

There was a dull thump against the bark. Simon mirrored the sound when he banged his head against the wood in front of him.

“Don’t kill him,” Simon whispered hopelessly into the treason timber. “Please, just let him go.”

“There has to be a better way,” Raphael said firmly. “Another way to pay for his sins. Something else you want. Tell me, and I’ll do it in exchange for Simon.”

“A deal?” Simon’s tone was delighted with spite. “With a Mundane? How positively archaic. I love it.” 

“Then you agree?” Raphael sounded hopeful.

“I didn’t say that.”

Silence like someone had hit the pause button. Simon counted the seconds. He jolted when his own voice cut through the tense quiet again.

“You survived the swamp.” He sounded intrigued. “How? Even Seelies have been known to drown in it.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Raphael’s voice was strained.

“Please, I can still smell the sulfur and rot all over you. Not to mention your clothes have barely dried. I wonder, what did you see when you swallowed the water?”

“Nothing.”

Simon could tell it was a lie. Raphael was too calm, trying too hard to sound unaffected. Simon’s evil alter ego laughed. It was the same cold barking sound that had distorted Raphael’s laughter in the church.

“Only a dead man wants nothing,” he said and continued in a patronizing tone. “You see, the swamp shows you the things you want. Well, on the surface, it starts with the things you think you want: the perfect stuff, the tame illusion, where everything is buttery cream and milk with honey.” It was disturbing when the impostor giggled with Simon’s voice.

“But then as you go down and it gets darker, you see what you actually want: the naughty stuff that you hide from everyone else to keep just for yourself. And then, at the very bottom,” he purred, relishing every word, “where all the really filthy stuff accumulates, is where you’ll see the things you had no idea you wanted: all the deep, dark, depraved desires you have managed to hide even from yourself. It’s all there, and it will drown you, but, what’s more, you’re going to let it. You’ll take a big, gulping breath full of filthy water, suck it all in, and die at the bottom of the swamp.” 

The speech ended with a flourish, but Simon barely had time to wonder what kind of filthy fantasies Raphael might be harboring before his alter ego was speaking again.

“But you didn’t. So, how?”

“I guess I have a higher power looking out for me.” Simon could almost see Raphael’s nonchalant shrug.

“Is that so?” Simon’s voice sounded amused. “Then why are you tied to a tree right now?”

“Maybe because you’re into kinky shit, or maybe you’re just a gutless motherf—“

Simon winced as the crack of a backhanded slap echoed through the timber. Now was really not a great time for Raphael to rediscover profanity. Not that he ever seemed to have actually lost it, but he usually kept it contained to Spanish phrases like it was somehow less bad if people didn’t know what it meant.

“Don’t make him kill you,” he whispered into the wood. “Please, don’t make him kill you.”

“Offer me a deal.” Raphael barked it like an order.

“You must want him badly,” Simon’s voice said mockingly. “Either that or you have no idea what you’re asking.” There was another pregnant pause, and then, “Fine.”

A violent thump made the tree shudder. Simon swore he could feel Raphael’s weight against his palm where he pressed it to the rough wood. He opened his senses to let it all in and was rewarded with the quick, steady beat of Raphael’s heart.

“Here’s your deal. You want Simon back? All you have to do is one thing, and I’ll let him go free.”

“Name it,” Raphael ground out.

“Kill the Erlking.” 

“Deal.”

Simon’s doppelganger laughed in a cold, clear titter. “Too bad it’s impossible.”

“It’s a deal,” Raphael roared. “Now seal it!”

“As you wish.” The doppelganger was still chuckling to himself. Ice-cold fear clawed its way down Simon’s back. “Let’s seal it with a kiss.”

Raphael’s heartbeat pounded like a war drum in Simon’s ears as he rested his forehead softly against the treason timber that kept him imprisoned.

Simon had no idea who the Erlking was, but he knew for certain that Raphael had just signed his own death warrant by agreeing to assassinate him.

Fucking Seelies and their fucking deals.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the Unseelie Kingdom. A mysterious land of seduction and death. 
> 
> Seriously, though, I wrote this mostly off the TV-Show and therefore came up with my own version of the Unseelie King. When I found out that the book canon involved one, I really didn't feel like adjusting the character I had already written, so I just stole the king's horses (and bronze riders, and encampment. Catch me if you dare.) and kept going with my version. 
> 
> Erlking and much of his demeanor is taken from Goethe's frightening as shit poem of the same name. I'm putting the relevant passages in the end notes.
> 
> Let me know what you think.
> 
> ###### 

Raphael cursed himself for his failure. He should have been quicker. If he had recognized the fake a second sooner. If he hadn’t announced his realization like a complete idiot. If only he hadn’t wasted his one chance to use Magnus’s iron dagger for its intended purpose.

Now the dagger was gone, and Raphael was bound by a deal he stood no hope of completing. He was well aware the Seelie had only agreed to it because it was impossible.

A passage from the Alice novel _Through the Looking Glass_ passed through Raphael’s mind. He laughed in defeat.

“Six impossible things before breakfast,” he muttered. “Can’t eat while I’m here, anyway.”

He had often thought that Simon Lewis was going to be the death of him. He had just never imagined it would take quite such a ludicrous form. Raphael Santiago, died on a heroic quest to save his … what?

It didn’t feel right to call them friends. Friends didn’t betray each other or attempt to kill each other over disagreements.

They certainly weren’t lovers. Raphael didn’t care what he’d seen after swallowing that accidental mouthful of swamp water. He didn’t care what had happened in the boathouse a year ago. A single lapse in judgment and some terrifyingly alluring hallucinations did not make them lovers.

Yet, here he was, struggling through all the horrors the Seelie Realm had to offer, determined to throw his life away if he had to in order to bring Simon home, because ultimately and all things considered, Simon was his.

His responsibility. His ruin. His choice.

Raphael shook his head at his own stupidity and kept walking. The kidnapper had given him what passed for directions in the Seelie Realm and sent him on his way with a final, mocking warning about the Erlking.

_He won’t be at all what you expect._

The border between the Seelie and Unseelie territory was demarcated as distinctly as any line drawn on paper. On the Seelie side, the sky was a dull, sunless gray. In contrast, an ominous midnight-blue firmament reigned over the Unseelie Court: no moon, no stars, no clouds.

Where nature on the Seelie side seemed to shift fluidly from spring to summer to autumn and back to spring, there was nothing but cold, harsh winter on the Unseelie side. The trees and shrubs were barren, their gnarled skeletal branches reaching in all directions to snare unsuspecting victims.

An icy gale blasted through Raphael as soon as he stepped over the dividing line. He pulled his tattered coat around himself, ducked his head, and ventured into the darkness. The frozen ground cracked beneath his feet.

As his gaze roamed over the desolate landscape, he felt a morbid sense of relief creep into him alongside the malignant chill. He didn’t have to worry about accidentally killing anything in this territory; everything was already dead.

The wind howled in his ears. A ruthless arm grabbed him around the waist. It hauled him up, and threw him across the intangible back of a horse shaped from thin air. Breathless, disoriented, and frightened out of his mind, Raphael stared at the thundering, translucent hooves as they carried him high into the air and galloped among the thorny branches through the barren canopy. 

Raphael couldn’t tell if it was minutes or hours later when the rider turned the steed toward the ground and deposited him face first into the snow. Not certain whether moving would get him killed, Raphael stayed exactly where he was: flat on his stomach on the hard, snow-covered ground.

A pair of smooth bronze boots stepped in front of his eyes.

“Kneel.”

Raphael obeyed. He sat up on his knees and kept his head bowed, taking a surreptitious glance at his surroundings. The mysterious rider had dropped him inside the encampment of the Unseelie Army. He’d been taken by one of their soldiers.

The bronze soldier walked away, leaving Raphael kneeling on the frozen ground. Raphael tried to get his bearings as much as he could, even though it was doubtful he could outrun a translucent flying horse.

Never mind the bears.

Three enormous bears with pitch-black coats and claws like karambit knives were chained to individual stakes just at the edge of his vision. One of the beasts ripped open its maw in a drooling yawn, exposing snarled yellow fangs.

The Unseelie Army had pitched a number of square gray tents in a disorderly clutter around several campfires. Raphael could hear metal jingling and the scrape of a whetstone gliding along the edge of a blade. At the center of the camp, straight ahead, an enormous black round top tent made from an unfamiliar material towered over everything. 

The heavy cloth parted at the entrance. The bronze soldier stepped out and walked toward him. A second person followed a few steps behind.

Raphael’s breath caught in his throat.

It was Simon, and it wasn’t. The body and the face belonged to Simon, but there was a cruel arrogance in his expression and an uncaring sinuousness in the way he moved; he was the embodiment of the proverbial snake in the grass. His shimmering pale-green skin was adorned with twisting vines of moon-flower; heart shaped verdant petals speckled his face and body, some as small as a pea while others were as large as the span of a hand.

_He won’t be at all what you expect._

The Erlking motioned his soldier to move aside. His eyes were cold obsidian surrounded by shimmering pearl. They stared down at Raphael with a mixture of curiosity and malice.

“And who might you be, pretty little mundane boy?”

The voice slammed into Raphael with the force of a painful memory. It was Simon’s voice, meeting Raphael’s feeble denial with a seductive purr of absolute confidence.

_I’m not like that._

_No offense, I think you are._

His body’s reaction was as involuntary as it was predictable. Raphael swayed forward, lips parted on a shaking breath, as a flicker of heat darted up his spine.

Something else slithered up his body. Raphael recoiled, but it was useless. Isabelle’s bracelet had already scaled his arm and climbed up along his neck.

The silver-gold snake curled around his ear, dragged itself across the bridge of his nose, and looped around the other ear only to reverse course. It took a winding path across his cheek, tied itself into an infinity knot in front of his mouth, and continued its weaving trail down his chin, and up all over the other cheek until it finally snapped its jaws shut on the tip of its own tail just below Raphael’s left ear.

Raphael felt the unmistakable tingle of magic as the intricate shape of silver-gold metal hardened and cemented itself in place around the lower half of his face. The bracelet had put a muzzle on him.

“Well, this is interesting,” purred the Erlking.

Raphael chuckled. He could still move his jaw behind the obstruction, but with the large infinity knot in front of his mouth it was impossible to eat or drink anything or to succumb to any other stupid impulses that might otherwise have overwhelmed him. 

The Erlking placed a long, hard finger under Raphael’s chin and tilted his head up until his neck hurt.

“Clean him up,” he ordered. “Clad him in our finest attire.”

The king pressed his thumb against the infinity knot, testing the strength of the muzzle. Raphael felt the metal warm quickly. He winced as the heat dried his lips and made them crack. It became unbearable before the Erlking finally let go. Raphael’s head dropped. He forced himself to stay upright on his knees.

“You are cordially invited to our ball, pretty little mundane boy.”

The Erlking walked away. The soldier who had brought Raphael to the encampment hauled him to his feet. He pushed Raphael at two Seelies, one male and one female, dressed in shapeless tunics and rawhide pants. They grabbed him by his arms and escorted him off.

Raphael didn’t resist when they pushed him into one of the gray tents. He did flinch as soon as one of them reached for his coat.

The male raised his white-blonde brows and blinked his water-green eyes quizzically at the female. In answer, she furrowed her pitch-black brows and narrowed her red-earth eyes. Aside from the complementary colors of their eyes and hair, their faces were identical. The twins tilted their heads at each other as if they were conversing in a silent language.

Raphael quickly slipped his hand into his coat and palmed Simon’s guitar pick. The small piece of plastic was the only way he would be able to find his way back to him if Raphael actually managed to fulfill his part of the deal and escape.

Finished with their silent conversation, the twins turned back to Raphael with renewed determination. They touched him with clinical detachment and without hesitation or underlying intent. Raphael let them take off his ruined clothes and watched them discard the whole pile into the fire pit at the center of the tent.

He stood still and kept his fist clenched around the guitar pick as the twins washed the blood off his skin and dabbed some sort of flowery unction on him. Raphael felt a crawling sensation as the open wounds all over his back and neck closed up and the scratches on his arms and legs were brushed away to reveal healthy skin underneath.

The twins dressed him in clothes similar to theirs but made up of more gossamer thread and pearl than Raphael felt comfortable wearing. Between the transparent black shirt, the skintight pearl-studded pants, and the silver-gold muzzle on his face, his reflection in the tall, gold-framed standing mirror resembled a glamour shot on the cover of a fetish magazine. 

But if he could use this appearance to turn the king’s head, maybe, just maybe he could get close enough and … what? Headbutt the Erlking hard enough to break his skull? Snap his neck? Bite him and drain him dry?

Raphael groaned. If he had still been a vampire, any of the above might have been a possibility. As it was, he could do nothing without a weapon even if he did get close to the king.

The twins ushered him back out of the tent and escorted him to the large black round top at the center of the encampment.

As soon as Raphael stepped through the heavy fabric, he felt something tug at his muzzle. It tugged again, then pried forcefully, but the metal didn’t budge. Raphael’s eyes started to water before the unseen force finally relented. The muzzle stayed in place.

He breathed a sigh of relief and followed his escorts down a long hallway that opened up into an enormous ballroom.

Encased inside the velvet-black confines of the room was an idyllic scene from a snow globe.

Gentle snowflakes swirled through the air, never reaching the ground. A frozen pond stretched across the center of the room, surrounded by a pristine white landscape dotted with verdant evergreens dusted in powdery snow.

Banquet tables had been set on two sides of the pond; plates and bowls filled with a harvest bounty of fruit, vegetables, and grain crowded each other on the long surfaces. Tall, decadent fountains made from sculpted ice overflowed with rich, crimson liquid.

Across the pond, sheltered by a copse of mammoth redwood trees, loomed a crystal throne; its tall back was decorated with carvings of woodland creatures frozen in flight, trapped in ice that would never melt.

The Erlking was sprawled across the wide seat, one leg carelessly thrown over an armrest formed by the curved shape of a crouching badger. He raised a lazy hand and snapped his fingers.

“Dance!”

Whimsical music filled the air, strings and woodwind instruments weaving a haunted, enchanting melody. Raphael looked around as the twins pulled him onto the frozen pond. If there was an orchestra, it was invisible to him.

The male twin pushed Raphael onto the ice with a forceful swipe of his arm. Raphael felt about as graceful as an albatross as he skidded across the slippery surface. He lost his balance, ready to land painfully on his ass, when a deceptively delicate pair of arms caught him from behind, pulled him up against a squishy bosom and spun him around.

The Seelie girl was unsurprisingly gorgeous. Her pixie features brightened with a giddy smile as she wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him along.

Raphael felt like a child’s toy as the Seelies passed him between them. They pulled him close to trail their hands all over him only to push him away, spinning him in unwilling, graceless pirouettes across the ice into a different pair of arms.

He had no idea how much time passed. His feet started to hurt and then burn and finally it felt like the soles of his boots were made from broken glass. Raphael was in pain and dizzy from exhaustion. If he had to dance one more minute, he would pass out.

Yet another forceful twist sent him spinning, but, instead of the dreaded pair of arms waiting to catch him, there was a wide gap. Raphael careened forward, grasped at nothing, and had just enough time to cover his face before he crashed onto the ice.

Despite the stinging pain, he welcomed the cool wetness against his overheated body, grateful that he could rest even for a minute. He dreaded the inevitable return of groping hands.

When the music stopped and the Seelies stayed away, Raphael dared to pull himself up on his elbows to take a look around.

Everyone else had retreated to the edges of the pond. The Erlking had left his throne. He moved across the ice in a careless sashay, his footing as sure as if he was sauntering down a New York City street, and stopped right in front of Raphael.

When he reached out his slender hand, Raphael instinctively drew back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Relevant passages of the Erlking by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. (Bowring translation)
> 
> "My son, wherefore seek'st thou thy face thus to hide?"  
> "Look, father, the Erl-King is close by our side!  
> Dost see not the Erl-King, with crown and with train?"  
> "My son, 'tis the mist rising over the plain."
> 
> 'Sweet lad, o come and join me, do!  
> Such pretty games I will play with you; 
> 
> 'Will you, sweet lad, come along with me?  
> My daughters shall care for you tenderly;  
> In the night my daughters their revelry keep,  
> They'll rock you and dance you and sing you to sleep.'
> 
> "I love thee, I'm charm'd by thy beauty, dear boy!  
> And if thou'rt unwilling, then force I'll employ."


	13. Chapter 13

The impostor had pulled Simon from his prison and tied him to the outside of the treason timber with shackles of vine. Simon’s shirt hung in shreds from his shoulders. Warm breath ghosted over his neck as the impostor leaned close, placed a hand on the center of his chest, and moaned in his ear.

“He’s going to die a horrible, painful death.”

Raphael’s hand slid down Simon’s carved up chest and dragged sharp fingernails slowly back and forth across his bruised stomach just above the waistband of Simon’s jeans.

“The Erlking is going to play with him for a while, but, in the end, your lover is going to die like this.” The impostor removed his hand and snapped his fingers. “And his soul is going to be trapped in a place worse than hell forever.”

His tongue flicked over Simon’s earlobe before he clamped blunt teeth around the small bit of flesh and bit down until he drew blood.

Simon sucked in breath after breath through his nose, choking down the noises in his throat, as the pain sliced through his skin into the sensitive nerves below. He refused to scream.

The doppelganger released his earlobe and chuckled darkly. “Such a stupid boy.” He pulled back to look at Simon with an amused furrow between his brows. “Did he really think he could save you?”

Simon turned his head and stared at the ground. He didn’t want to look at Raphael’s face. He already felt like someone had shredded his insides, just knowing that the real Raphael was in this realm and had promised to kill the Unseelie King to rescue him. The whole point of letting this crazy kidnapper take Simon had been to protect Raphael.

“You know,” the evil twin mused, going back to dragging sharp nails over Simon’s skin, “every terrible thing they say about him is true. Every poem, every song, every awful horror fantasy that’s ever been written about the Unseelie King. It’s all true.”

Simon tried to writhe away, but the vines held him in place and the bastard grabbed his jaw to make him look at Raphael’s face.

“Did you know, one of the Erlking’s powers is to be the most tempting creature you ever laid eyes on? It’s funny, actually, they used to say the same thing about Lucifer, but ...” The impostor clicked his tongue, shaking his head. His gleeful cackle sounded like a knife scraped deliberately across a plate.

“His voice is pure seduction, and when he touches you, you want nothing more than to throw yourself into his arms and let him kiss away your soul, even though you’re so damn scared you think you’re going to soil yourself.”

The Seelie grabbed Simon’s crotch and squeezed hard enough to make him see stars. “You probably don’t know what that feels like, do you?”

Simon turned his face again and stared harder at the ground. As a matter of fact, he knew exactly what it felt like to want someone that much and be fucking terrified of them at the same time. It was easier to focus on the throbbing pain in his balls and the anger boiling in his blood.

“Fuck you.”

His tormentor huffed. “See, I don’t think you really mean that.” He tilted his head and tightened his grip. “And I don’t think either of us would enjoy it.” He released Simon’s balls and grabbed his chin again. “You disgust me.”

“Yeah? Well, right back at’cha.”

Simon’s face snapped to the side with the force of the strike but he couldn’t care less. After everything the damn Seelie had put him through, a slap to the face barely registered.

“You won’t be so haughty when they mount your dead lover’s head on a pike and parade him around the Unseelie Realm just for amusement.” The impostor sucked Raphael’s bottom lip between his teeth. “Maybe I’ll take you there just to see the look on your face.”

Simon clenched his jaw tight, struggling not to let the words get to him. He didn’t want to imagine the poisonous images his captor was trying to drip into his mind. “Now you’re just making shit up.”

Raphael’s doppelganger laughed. “Seelies can’t lie, remember?”

Ice-cold fear ran down Simon’s back and made him struggle against his restraints. He was not going to let Raphael die. He had to get out. Whatever it took. He couldn’t spend one more minute like this, knowing it was his fault that Raphael had come to the Seelie Realm in the first place.

His captor laughed. “Go ahead, struggle against the vines. Let’s see how long it takes before you rub your skin raw and how long after that you’ll keep going.”

Simon persisted, twisting his wrists inside the obsidian vines holding him captive. His eyes roamed wildly, searching for anything that could help him.

A piece of metal gleamed in the grass.

Simon’s eyes widened.

It was the curvy iron keris dagger that Magnus had liberated from Camille’s mansion in India. The one Magnus’s mother had committed suicide with.

He must have given it to Raphael. Magnus would be so pissed when he found out that Raphael had lost it. Why the hell would he have allowed Raphael to take the dagger and come to the Seelie Realm in the first place? Couldn’t he have put a cage around Raphael and kept him somewhere safe until he was able to talk sense into him? Seriously, that warlock was flightier than a Fincher flick sometimes.

Simon reined in his derailing train of thought. The important thing right now was that the dagger was less than three feet away from Simon’s left foot.

He continued to struggle with the vines, but he could feel his wrists start to sting with friction burn and the damn things still didn’t budge.

He needed a better idea. If he could get to the dagger, he could get out of this.

Half-crazy with pain and frustration, Simon gritted his teeth and rolled his eyes to the dull gray sky. If it was Jace in this situation and Clary was out there doing something spectacularly stupid to save him, what would Jace do?

Simon snorted. Jace would go for his stele, of course.

Okay, what would Jace do if he didn’t have his stele? How would he get the dagger from the ground at his feet into his hands?

The Seelie hadn’t bound Simon’s legs to the tree, but the blade was just out of reach. If it had been just a little closer or higher up at a better angle ...

Simon choked on a wet laugh when he finally figured it out.

There was no way this would work, and he only had one chance. If he fucked up any part of it, he’d lose the dagger and what little freedom he had right now, and the Seelie would probably kill him in a fit of rage.

Simon closed his eyes, sucked in a trembling breath through his swollen nose and calmed himself down as much as he could. He wished he hadn’t skipped leg day so often. If this worked, he’d never skip it again.

He twisted his wrists around to take hold of the vines, channeled his inner Jace Herondale, and put a shit-eating grin on his face.

“Done already?” The impostor sounded genuinely disappointed.

He had taken a couple steps back to watch Simon and was making a show out of cleaning Simon’s blood from under his fingernails. Simon forced himself to grin wider and put on a smug expression, even though every muscle in his face screamed in protest.

“Yeah,” he said, “I came up with something better.”

The fake Raphael’s eyes narrowed. “And what would that be?”

Simon steadied himself and grabbed the vines tighter, ready to transfer his weight to his arms. He jerked his chin in the direction of Magnus’s dagger.

“I’m going to shove that dagger in your chest and drain you dry.”

“Oh, really?” said the doppelganger sarcastically. “And just how do you plan to do that?”

“You’ll see,” Simon hedged, silently willing his captor to go for the dagger. “I’m not gonna tell you, because that would make it too easy.”

_Come on, come on._

The Seelie huffed derisively, sauntered toward the dagger, and bent down to pick it up. “I really don’t see why you insist—"

_Yes!_

Simon swung his legs out, clamped them around the Seelie’s neck, crossed his ankles, and held tight. Raphael’s eyes widened comically as his hands flew up and clawed into Simon’s knees, trying to pry them apart. His face started to turn an alarming shade of red. 

“Can’t breathe, huh?” Simon forced out. His stomach muscles and thighs burned with the effort to keep his legs clamped around his captor’s throat. “Too bad. Pick up the dagger.”

The Seelie crouched down and reached for the dagger.

“Don’t even think about doing something stupid.” Simon clenched his legs harder. “You’ve got maybe ten seconds before you pass out.” He gritted his teeth as he was forced to stretch to accommodate the Seelie’s movements. “Now cut me loose.”

Raphael’s eyes glared daggers at him while the Seelie complied. Simon tightened his hands around the vines, but there was nothing he could do when the bastard cut the cords above his hands, sending him skidding down the tree without any support.

The bark grated the skin off Simon’s back, but he never released his leg-hold on the Seelie’s neck and twisted his body just before he crashed into the ground, taking the bastard down with him.

One last burst of vampire speed and Simon made good on his promise. He shoved the iron dagger into the Seelie’s heart and buried his fangs in Raphael’s neck, draining him as fast as he could.

After the first few gulps, the Seelie glamour faded. Simon drank until there was nothing left. Then he pulled back and watched with satisfaction as the life drained out of watery blue eyes and the pale-green face went slack with death.

“Bitch.”

It was the female Seelie who had hit on him at the Hunter’s Moon. The thing he remembered most sharply about her was how Raphael’s tan hand had pried her pasty green digits off him like she was a piece of garbage. 

Simon scrambled away from her dead body and wiped her blood off his mouth. If he didn’t need it to heal his injuries, he would have forced himself to vomit it all back up. He wanted no part of that Seelie.

He pulled Magnus’s dagger out of her chest and cleaned it on the grass. Then he dragged himself to his feet and walked away.

He remembered the directions the bitch had given Raphael. With any luck, Simon could get to him before he did anything stupid and got himself killed.

The thought made it hard to breathe, so Simon stopped breathing and burst into vampire speed.


	14. Chapter 14

Dancing with the Erlking was what it must be like to dance with the devil. Raphael couldn’t feel his feet touch the ground. He couldn’t take a full breath. The muzzle burned like glowing embers, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to pull away.

The vines that writhed all over the king’s body had extended and crawled onto Raphael. They curled around his arms and between his legs, winding around his waist to keep their hips aligned, pressed tightly together, as they swayed to the music.

The melody was slow, heavy with deep bass beats, and dripping with sexual temptation. It made Raphael vaguely uncomfortable even as he was mesmerized by the smoldering black gaze staring back at him.

They weren’t so much dancing as grinding into each other. The king’s hands were hardly distinguishable from the vines where they crawled all over Raphael, leaving goosebumps in their wake like cold breath on sweat-soaked skin.

Sometimes, when he blinked too long, Raphael started to forget. He tried to keep his eyes open as much as possible, tried to stay aware of the danger in the void-black gaze and the cruel arrogance in the seductive smile. It was becoming more difficult with every passing minute.

His lips parted behind the burning hot infinity knot, wishing he could take off the painful muzzle, wishing he could …

“Your majesty!”

The music faded; the echo of the heavy, pounding beats seemed to linger in Raphael’s pulse.

The expression on Simon’s face promised swift and painful retribution to the person who had interrupted their dance, but his voice was as sweet as honeysuckle when he spoke.

“What worthy root decreed thy bud to wilt and wither ere its first seed ever spilled?” 

Even as the vines continued to crawl all over him, Raphael felt his head clear of the king’s thrall. The irreconcilable absurdity of hearing Shakespearean English come out of Simon’s mouth certainly helped.

A Seelie with the body of a grown man and the face of a twelve-year-old boy fell to his knees on the ice in front of them.

“The riders have returned, your majesty,” he rushed out in a shaky voice. “You bade me to inform you straight away.”

“So we did,” the king replied with a resentful curl of his lip before he turned back to Raphael. “Come, pretty little mundane boy. Let’s see what our riders have brought back from the hunt.”

The Erlking wrapped his arm around Raphael’s waist and pulled him along. Raphael’s feet slipped on the ice. He stumbled into the king’s shoulder, a mishap that the king interpreted as permission. He tightened his hold and pressed Raphael to his side like some frail fairy-tale princess who couldn’t walk on her own two feet.

Anger and embarrassment lit a fire in Raphael’s gut that brought him fully back to his senses by the time they reached a tent near the bear pen. He gathered his strength to pull free from the king and his creeping vines, but the moment never came.

The servant parted the heavy gray cloth and ushered them inside. Raphael’s thoughts came to an abrupt halt.

Two Seelie warriors knelt in front of them, their heads bowed, their arms tied behind their backs. Raphael recognized one of them by the plaits in his long, dark hair and the steel-studded tips of his ears.

The Erlking’s horde had captured Meliorn.

The Seelie beside Meliorn was a female with cherry-red hair and bright white waterlily markings on her chestnut brown arms. Their armor had been stripped down to the shimmering silver leaves of their scale mail shirts.

Behind them stood two of the Erlking’s bronze soldiers, long swords drawn. The triangular tips of their blades rested just below their captives’ necks.

“They say they came to join your army, majesty.”

The Erlking hummed in his throat. “Yet we heard a whisper on the wind that one of them has come to infiltrate our ranks as a spy.” He sighed.

Raphael tried not to writhe as the Erlking’s fingers trailed in maddening swirls along his ribs. The creeping vines pulsed around his arms and between his legs as the king contemplated his captives.

“Look at your king, children.”

Raphael bit down on a curse and pressed his face against the Erlking’s shoulder. If Meliorn recognized him, he might draw suspicion by association.

The king’s reaction was disgustingly predictable. Raphael felt the vines tighten around him. He sensed the smug smile against the crown of his head just before the Erlking pressed his lips there. The fleeting kiss felt like someone drilling a nail into Raphael’s head.

“How are we to know,” the Erlking purred, “which one of you is sincere?”

“We are both sincere, your majesty.” Meliorn’s voice was calm and certain. “Though I do not know my companion well, I am certain both of us only wish to serve you.”

“You’ve proclaimed as much, yet how can we trust you?” The Erlking asked. “Though our kind cannot lie, like artisans we’ve learned to bend and twist the truth until it takes the shape we desire.” He shook his head. “No. Kill them both.” 

So much for pretending not to know Meliorn.

“Wait.” Raphael pressed himself closer to the king. He cradled the familiar stubborn jawline in his palm and ignored the burn of the muzzle as he leaned up to whisper in his ear. “I can find out if he’s telling the truth.”

The Erlking raised his hand to stay his soldiers and turned his head. Ink-black void devoured Raphael as he stared into the king’s eyes.

“The pretty little mundane boy speaks at last.”

“I know him,” Raphael admitted, purposely brushing his thumb over the king’s cheek. “He was a close confidant once. We share romantic history.”

He was playing a dangerous game, offering twisted truths as fluently as any Seelie, but Raphael knew without a doubt he needed Meliorn alive to complete his end of the deal with Simon’s kidnapper. If that meant using the fact that they both cared deeply about Isabelle Lightwood to pretend Raphael had had an affair with the Seelie warrior himself, so be it.

The Erlking’s eyes narrowed. “You are not as innocent as we thought.”

Raphael curled his lips in a coy smile and lowered his lashes. “I never shared his bed nor anyone else’s.”

Another twisted truth. Technically speaking, the load-bearing beam of a boathouse was in no way a bed, and Raphael had always slept alone. The vines tightened again, pulsing between Raphael’s legs as they slithered and curled at the small of his back. He pretended to enjoy the sensation and leaned into the Erlking’s chest.

“Let me talk to him alone,” he breathed the words against the king’s neck, hoping what Simon had called his ‘blowjob voice’ had a similar effect on the Erlking. “I will find out what you want to know.”

“Why would you—"

Raphael rolled his hips and pressed his thigh between the king’s legs. He rubbed along the hard length that had been harassing him since they had started to dance and watched the black eyes lose focus.

“Let me do this for you, my king.”

The Erlking shivered with pleasure, a delirious smile on his face. He collected himself with a chuckle that promised dark and dirty things and hooked one finger under the bottom edge of Raphael’s muzzle, making it burn.

“You have our permission,” he purred.

The king stepped back and his vines withdrew, slithering off Raphael’s arms and legs like snakes fleeing from St. Patrick’s staff.

Raphael breathed a sigh of relief when the bronze soldiers sheathed their swords and followed their king, leaving him and the two captives alone inside the tent.

Raphael wasted no time and crouched low, getting as close to the Seelie warrior as he could.

“Meliorn?”

He watched the other man’s eyes widen in sudden recognition.

“Raphael?”

“Yeah,” he said with a smirk. “Let me guess. I look … different?”

Meliorn’s thick brows furrowed as he looked at the muzzle on Raphael’s face. Then he turned to his companion.

The Seelie warrior didn’t say a word, but his lips twitched once and he bestowed the woman with an intense look. Her pale-green eyes went wide, but then she pressed her lips in a firm line and shook her head no.

Raphael was about to comment on the odd exchange when Meliorn spoke in a quick mumble.

“Take the ring off her finger.”

Confused, Raphael crawled around them to look at the female warrior’s hands. When his eyes fell on the golden ring in the shape of overlapping leaves, he gasped. He had seen a similar ring, made of silver, when Simon had broken into the Gard.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly as he forced her fist to unclench. He slipped the Seelie whisper ring from the woman’s thumb and put it on his ring finger.

_There is no need to apologize_. Meliorn’s voice echoed inside Raphael’s mind even though the Seelie had not released his lips from their grim scowl. _We are soldiers on a mission. Needs must. I assume your attempt to save the Daylighter has brought you here?_

_Yes,_ Raphael thought quietly, afraid to be overheard inside his own mind. _I made a deal with the Seelie who took him_.

Meliorn’s gaze sharpened. _What did you promise?_

_What if anyone hears?_

_The only one with the power to overhear this conversation is dead._ Meliorn’s thought was laced with bitterness and grief. _These were the queen’s personal whisper rings_.

Raphael still hesitated to reveal the truth. What if Meliorn actually was here to join the Erlking? Just because he was communicating in secret with the other Seelie captive, it didn’t prove he was a spy.

“Why are you here, Meliorn?” Raphael asked the question out loud, knowing he wouldn’t get a direct answer.

“You heard what I said,” Meliorn replied calmly. “I am here to join the king’s army.”

“As a spy?” Raphael pressed further.

Meliorn averted his eyes from Raphael’s scrutinizing glare to stare at the silver-gold muzzle. He leaned close, balancing precariously with his arms tied behind his back until his lips almost touched the infinity knot in front of Raphael’s mouth. The metal flared white-hot, burning Raphael’s lips.

_Isabelle_. Meliorn pulled back with a smile. _I heard pure love could do magic, but I never saw it with my own eyes before._

_What are you talking about?_

_Isabelle’s bracelet. This is her doing._

Raphael huffed. _Isabelle loves Simon. If she still has feelings for me, there’s nothing pure about them._

Still, he couldn’t help the memories that flashed through his mind. The taste of Isabelle’s tears when they kissed. Her arms wrapped around him, smothering him against her chest as she held on tight. The taste of her blood before the heavenly fire had turned him human.

Meliorn chuckled. _I said pure, not innocent. This muzzle is a sophisticated piece of pure love magic_.

Raphael still had no idea what Meliorn was on about. He hadn’t really stopped to question where Isabelle’s bracelet drew its power or how it had been able to protect him, twice, without him doing anything to encourage it.

Realizing his thoughts played out like a movie for Meliorn, Raphael wasn’t surprised when the Seelie explained without having to be asked.

_Love in its purest form is nothing sweet or saintly. Undiluted by moral considerations, it’s a force that knows no limits, heeds no boundaries. It will cross every line, lay waste to any adversaries, in order to protect itself._

Raphael’s stomach clenched. He didn’t like how deeply that description hit home. He remembered standing on the bridge, Isabelle’s fingers laced through his, holding on tightly, refusing to let him go. Her haunted eyes burned inside his mind.

_Come back to me. Both of you. Come back to me._

Meliorn’s voice dripped poison into the open wound. _Magic as strong as this comes at a steep price. If Isabelle’s willing to pay it, you shouldn’t waste the gift_.

Raphael shook his head, not willing to accept that kind of love was meant for him.

“It’s not mine,” he said out loud before he caught himself and closed his mouth.

Yet he had willingly offered to die for it, and now he was here to kill for it.

Meliorn’s eyes had gone wide before Raphael realized the traitorous thought had slipped between their minds.

_I didn’t mean_ , he started to think, but an image as vivid as a photograph stopped him in his tracks.

A dull black pearl the size of a small hazelnut rested on a white-green palm; the shell was hardened by magic to protect its poisonous contents: quiver-root and demon ichor from the remains of Jonathan Morgenstern.

Meliorn had let himself be captured to poison the Unseelie king. He had delivered Raphael’s chance to satisfy the deal with Simon’s kidnapper on a silver platter.

Meliorn’s thought was quiet and furtive. _I would slip it in his drink_.

Raphael swallowed and lowered his gaze. He knew that plan would never work. The Erlking would never let a new and suspect follower get close enough to slip anything in his food or drink. He was too cautious for that.

On the other hand, the king would not think twice if a pretty little mundane boy finally succumbed to his erotic thrall.

They had one chance to get this right, and Raphael was not going to waste it.

“I have a better idea.”

As the thought played like a movie scene inside both their minds, the muzzle started to burn.


	15. Chapter 15

Simon burst across the border into the Unseelie Realm with blade in hand. He barely acknowledged the change in his surroundings. Nothing mattered except getting to Raphael before Raphael got to the Erlking. Bones and dead branches crunched under his boots. The icy wind tore at his skin.

A bronze-clad arm wrapped around his waist. Simon whirled around, fangs bared. His curved blade punched through armor and sank deep into flesh. The knight’s horse reared back. Simon’s weight dragged him down as they galloped high into the air, but he held on to the hilt of the blade, pulled himself up onto the horse’s back, ripped the rider’s helmet off, and tore into the pallid throat.

When the rider died, his mount dissolved into thin air. Simon hurtled toward the ground, landed on his feet, and kept running.

By the time he broke into the Erlking’s encampment, Simon had gone through half a dozen bronze riders. He was drenched in Seelie blood, and every one of his senses was acute enough to scream at him.

The bears were dead before their handlers could release them.

He was still too late.

Simon looked up from his crouch over the bear carcass. Time stopped.

Less than ten feet away from him, two versions of Raphael were wrapped in a perverse embrace. The Raphael on the left was dressed in tight black pants and a billowing tunic. He was Dread Pirate Roberts, but instead of a fencing foil, Isabelle’s silver-gold whip hung lifelessly in his hand. Poison-green vines snaked all over Raphael’s body, holding him tightly against his alter ego: a twisted version of a Shakespeare faerie dressed in nothing but vines and strategically placed leaves. 

They were kissing.

Someone screamed.

Time started again as both versions of Raphael crumpled to the ground.

The blaring drone of a war-horn echoed through the icy air. At once, Seelie warriors in white-gold armor swarmed the encampment and engaged their bronze-clad opponents in battle.

In the ensuing calamity, Simon barreled his way through the skirmishing crowd. He crashed to his knees in front of Raphael as the Erlking dissolved in a cloud of ash and embers next to him.

“What did you do?” he asked hopelessly.

Simon dragged Raphael’s unresponsive body into his lap. Some type of nasty black ichor covered his blue-gray lips. Simon reached to wipe it away. His blood-soaked fingers froze before he made contact.

“Simon?”

He met the call with the point of his dagger aimed, ready to kill whoever had spoken until he recognized the Seelie warrior.

“Meliorn?”

“Come quickly,” Meliorn said.

Simon shoved his arms under Raphael’s shoulders and knees, cradled the limp body against his chest, and stood up.

He felt something slither over his boot. When he looked down, Isabelle’s bracelet had wound itself around his ankle. Simon nodded to himself and followed Meliorn away from the battlefield.

The Seelie warrior led him quietly along a rotten path until they reached the sheer face of a craggy cliff. The jagged wall stretched far and wide against the empty midnight sky. Simon’s hyper-alert senses saw the crevice in the rock before Meliorn pointed it out.

“Through here.”

Simon followed him into the cave.

Raphael’s weight felt solid and warm in his arms. He was still breathing. Simon held on to that thought with the desperation of a drowning man holding on to a piece of driftwood.

They walked down a narrow, rocky passage for what felt like eternity. When Raphael’s breathing began to slow, Simon lost his patience.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Back to your own realm,” Meliorn responded without slowing down or turning around.

“How much further is it?”

“Not far now.”

The serenity in Meliorn’s voice was too much. Simon snapped like a dry twig under a heavy boot.

“What the fuck happened?”

His shout bounced off the walls, setting off whatever small creatures lived in these caves. They scuttled off into the darkness with flapping wings and skittering chitinous legs.

Meliorn sighed, but he did not slow down. In fact, he quickened his pace as he began to explain.

“The Seelie Realm is at war to determine the successor to the queen. The Erlking was one of the contenders for the throne. His armies—”

“Meliorn,” Simon barked. “I really don’t give a shit about Seelie politics right now. What happened to Raphael?”

Meliorn sighed again. “He delivered the poison with which I intended to assassinate the Erlking.”

“Is that why he …” Simon struggled with the words. “Kissed him?”

Meliorn nodded. “He thought it was the only way to ensure the poison reached its target. I could not convince him otherwise.”

Simon scoffed. “Yeah, I bet you tried real hard.”

He felt the cold seep into him as he looked down. Raphael’s face was slack, just the barest hint of a frown between his dark brows. The black ichor was still smeared over his mouth. Simon wished he had something to wipe it off.

“What is that stuff?”

“Jonathan Morgenstern’s demon ichor and quiver-root.”

Simon stopped dead. He choked on all the words that wanted to scream their way out of him at the same time and forced himself to release the breath trapped in his chest with a slow, shaking exhale. Then he caught up with Meliorn in less than a heartbeat.

“How do I save him?”

“He’s a Mundane now,” Meliorn said quietly. “I don’t know that you can.” 

“No.” Simon shook his head. “How? Tell me!”

“Simon, it’s not just the demon ichor or the quiver-root.”

“What?”

Simon felt a growl build low in his chest, begging to turn into a roar. What else could there possibly be? Raphael was dying in his arms, and Simon was ready to make a deal with any version of the devil – Viggo Mortensen, Al Pacino, Liz Hurley even – if there was any way to save him. What the fuck else could there possibly fucking be to make this situation any more fucking dire?

“He **_kissed_** the Erlking to deliver the poison,” Meliorn said, stressing the word ‘kissed’ as if it explained everything.

The impostor’s cruel smile flashed through Simon’s mind. Her mannerisms distorting Raphael’s features as she used his husky voice to drip poison in Simon’s ears.

_You’ll want nothing more than to throw yourself into his arms and let him kiss away your soul._

Fuck.

“He took his soul.” The words felt like blunt weights in Simon’s mouth. “How do I get it back?”

“Simon, no soul taken by the Erlking has ever ret—”

“Stop with the evasive bullshit! There is always a way, and it always comes at a fucking price. Now, where is Raphael’s soul, and how do I get it back?”

Meliorn finally stopped and turned around to look at him. The Seelie warrior’s gaze moved from Simon’s face to Raphael’s body in his arms, down to Isabelle’s bracelet around Simon’s ankle, and back up to Simon’s face.

“We’ve reached the entrance to your world,” he said quietly. “If you love Isabelle as much as she loves you two, you should take Raphael home and say your goodbyes.”

Simon flinched. “No.”

He couldn’t. He tightened his hold on Raphael.

Simon remembered a moment that seemed forever ago when he had held Clary in his arms just like this while a nasty blood-oath was burning the life out of her.

He had been in love with Clary then. The thought of losing her had been sadness and pain, trying to squeeze back the tears as he pretended to keep hope alive, babbling on about some stupid teen romance movie he’d never actually seen. It was doomed puppy love.

This, what he was feeling right now, was a snarling hellhound, ready to rip apart every corner of heaven, hell, and everything in between until he found Raphael’s soul and brought him back home safe and alive. Saying goodbye was not an option.

Whatever Meliorn saw in Simon’s face made him look away. “If you stay, you will end up killing all three of you.”

Simon shook his head. “What do you mean?”

Meliorn pointed at Simon’s ankle. “Isabelle’s bracelet. Like you said, there’s always a price. She won’t be able to sustain herself and the magic to protect you indefinitely.”

Simon frowned. He had no idea how a damn ankle bracelet was threatening Isabelle’s life, but he wasn’t going to let her kill herself to protect him. He stepped forward and pushed Raphael at Meliorn.

“Take him,” he said. “Careful!”

He was relieved when Meliorn didn’t protest and let Simon shift Raphael into his arms. Simon crouched down and wrapped his fingers around Izzy’s bracelet, trying to pull it off. The silver-gold bands around his ankle didn’t budge.

Simon growled in frustration as his bloody fingers kept slipping off the metal. “I love you, Iz, more than my life, but I swear if you don’t let go, I’m gonna pull a _Saw_ and cut off my own leg with Meliorn’s sword right now.”

The snake loosened its coils and Simon slipped the silver-gold bracelet off his ankle. He got up and pushed it carefully inside the gap of Raphael’s shirt on his stomach.

“Get them back to the Institute. Tell Izzy I love her. Tell her I had to do this.” He looked down at Raphael, pallid and dying in Meliorn’s arms. “I think she’ll get it. If she doesn’t, tell her it’s an _Y Tu Mamá También_ thing.” Meliorn opened his mouth, but Simon wasn’t interested in anything the Seelie had to say about the whole fucked up situation. “Now, tell me – and no bullshit – how do I find his soul?”


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the only chapter that's written from Isabelle's perspective. It's also the chapter with the most Magnus/Alec interaction in the entire story. Alec only shows up in one other chapter after this and if you blink, you'll miss it.
> 
> ###### 

Isabelle’s eyes snapped open to the sight of blinding white light. She gasped and took her first clear breath in what felt like years. The sound of a heart monitor beeped fast and shrill in her ears as she struggled to fight off whatever was holding her down.

“Izzy, Izzy, calm down. It’s me.”

A warm hand clamped around her arm. The voice was familiar but she couldn’t place it until the hand pulled her up against a large, warm chest and she inhaled evergreen and expensive foreign cologne.

“Alec.”

She threw her arms around her older brother and held on for dear life. It took three doses of painkillers before she calmed down enough to get herself under control.

Alec waited patiently with his dark brows furrowed over his expressive water-colored eyes that were absolute shit at hiding his emotions. 

“It’s okay, Izzy. You’re awake now.”

“How long was I out?” She had trouble keeping the apprehension out of her voice.

“Four days,” Alec said, his voice stiff with suppressed concern. “You went home on Thursday and never showed up for work on Friday. Helen found you on your bed, unconscious. We tried to wake you up ever since.”

She nodded. Yeah, she’d tried quite a few things to make herself wake up, too, at first. Unfortunately, nothing had worked. The memories were all fuzzy now. Maybe she shouldn’t have pushed the button for the painkillers so hard.

She remembered going to bed exhausted from worrying. She remembered falling asleep with thoughts of Raphael and Simon still churning in her mind. She remembered nightmares of birds and wasps and a foul-smelling swamp. She remembered abrading her skin three layers deep on the bark of a tree to save Raphael from drowning.

“Raphael!”

She jolted out of Alec’s arms, halfway to falling out of the hospital bed before her brother caught her again.

“He’s here,” Alec shouted over her flailing limbs. “He’s right here, just in another room.”

“I need to see him.”

Using her legs was like trying to walk on Jell-O filled with Lego bricks, but she managed to pull herself up onto her feet.

“Hang on!” She only resisted a little bit when Alec picked her up like a five-year-old and deposited her in a wheelchair. “I’ll take you to him.”

Alec rolled her down the hall and paused in front of the door to Raphael’s room. Izzy was about to get back out of the chair, but her brother’s heavy hand on her shoulder stopped her.

“Magnus is in there with him,” he said quietly. “He’s … not happy. Try not to piss him off? He’s doing everything he can to help keep Raphael alive.”

She twisted her shoulder out of Alec’s grip and turned the doorknob. He relented and pushed her inside.

Raphael was buried under a white duvet and hooked up to equipment like a patient on the veggie ward. The hand that rested on top of the blanket was mostly covered by a square white patch holding an IV needle in place. His fingers were more ash-gray than caramel-tan. His chest moved in an eerie, monotonous rhythm. His face was gaunt, disfigured by a web of thin, black veins crawling away from his mouth. His lips were slack around an endotracheal tube. He wasn’t breathing on his own.

Isabelle looked away. She held her breath and blinked quickly so she wouldn’t burst into tears.

Magnus looked like shit. His usually well-groomed beard was a scraggly mess. His hair was barely finger combed. The makeup on his face was dry and flaky, and he was dressed down to a simple T-shirt that looked wrinkled from six feet away. His flamboyant overcoat lay crumpled on the chair in the corner.

Isabelle opened her mouth to say something, but the only thing that came out was a stupid little high-pitched squeak that turned into a whimper. She tried to say she was sorry, but she wasn’t sure the words were even coming out right.

She had never meant for any of this to happen. She should have never let Raphael go after Simon. She should have never let Simon walk away from her while there was something wrong in the first place. If she’d done her job right, she would have known the Seelie Realm was at war. She would have known that some of them blamed Simon for not keeping the Mark of Cain, for failing to protect their queen. She would have had the threat contained before it ever got anywhere near Simon or Raphael.

“It’s all my fault,” she squeaked, falling on her knees in front of Magnus because she was trying to get to him and not even her stupid, wobbly legs would do what she wanted them to do. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Magnus rolled his head to look at her. He didn’t look pissed. He just looked tired. For all the glamour and magic that usually kept everyone guessing, he looked a thousand years old when his eyes met Isabelle’s.

“Come here.”

She did. Then she fell apart, bawling like a toddler into his lap because everything hurt, and her world was falling apart, and there was fuck all she could do about it. Magnus petted her hair and mumbled soothing words that she could barely hear until he gently placed a knuckle under her chin and coaxed her to look up at him.

“This was not your fault,” he said, looking her straight in the eyes. “Raphael made his choices and so did Simon. We can try to protect them, but we can’t live their lives for them.”

“But if I hadn’t—"

Magnus’s gaze hardened. “If you hadn’t thrown yourself into a truly impressive bit of emotion magic, Raphael would probably have drowned somewhere in the Seelie realm.”

Isabelle did a double-take. “So that really happened?”

“Oh, yes,” Magnus said with an arch look. “It certainly scared the crap out of Alexander.”

Isabelle looked up at her brother who had picked up Magnus’s jacket and sat down in the corner chair. He looked about as exhausted as Magnus except without the flaking makeup.

“We’d only just got you back here when you started coughing up water. Nobody had any clue what was going on. Then you started writhing in pain and your skin …” Alec trailed off with a nauseous look on his face.

Isabelle winced in sympathy and then winced in pain when she felt the healing abrasions on her chest, hips, and legs. “Yeah. Sorry.”

She had no idea how any of that had worked out. All she had done was react to the stuff that had happened in her dreams. When Raphael had been drowning, she had turned into a snake and pulled him to safety. Then, when the Unseelie King had started to put his thrall on him, she had instinctively turned herself into a muzzle to nip that right in the bud. But something had gone wrong. He had made her let go. The image of Raphael with Unseelie-Simon was stuck in her mind like a moment from an erotic nightmare. 

“You okay, Iz?”

Alec’s voice pulled her out of her thoughts. Isabelle shook her head to clear it and wiped her face on the collar of the atrocious hospital gown they’d put her in. She looked between her brother and Magnus.

“How did you figure out what was going on?”

“We didn’t,” Magnus admitted. “At least not until this morning when Meliorn showed up with Raphael and this.” He reached for something on the nightstand behind him and held it out between his fingers.

Her electrum bracelet was dull and caked with blood. Whose, she couldn’t tell. Isabelle took it and carefully put it around her wrist.

“Where’s Simon?”

She had a fleeting thought of Simon hugging her tightly, telling her he loved her more than life. It felt like someone dropped a hundred-pound stone inside her stomach.

Magnus didn’t say anything. Alec looked at her with concern all over his face. His jaw did the thing it did when he was getting ready to fudge the truth to protect her.

“Don’t lie to me.”

“Meliorn said he had a message for you. When you’re ready, we can—"

“Oh, I’m ready.” She pulled herself up, arms trembling with exertion, until her butt was back in the wheelchair. “I want to see him now.”

Alec knew better than to protest. As he grabbed the handles of the wheelchair to turn her around, she held tight to the rim of the wheel to stop him.

“Magnus?” she said hesitantly.

He raised his head, looking a million years old and ready to drop dead at Raphael’s bedside.

“Thank you,” she said sincerely. “For everything you do.”

She would fix this. Somehow. She had to. For all of them.

Alec rolled her from the hospital wing, past the Ops Center, to the large conference room. Isabelle held her chin high, trying to ignore the furtive glances from her Shadowhunters. From the looks of it, at least business had continued as usual while she was gone. Her brows furrowed.

“Who was in charge while I was out?”

“Aline,” Alec said. “She’ll be happy to hear that you’re back.”

“Crap, I missed girl’s night.” Izzy’s eyes widened. “Does Clary know?”

Alec flinched. “She’s going through proper training at the Academy right now. I thought it best if she didn’t get distracted. Aline made up an excuse.”

Isabelle threw the breaks in the hallway outside the conference room and looked up at her brother.

“What about our family?”

Alec found a captivating spot on the floor and pulled his fingers through his dark hair. The thick strands clumped like a rat’s nest. “Jace is on mission in Philadelphia until tomorrow. Dad and Max are busy in L.A., and I was going to wait to tell Mom and Luke until we knew for sure what was going on.”

“Alec!”

“I chickened out, okay?” he snapped, meeting her gaze with haunted eyes. “If I had told any one of them, they would have all been here, and I couldn’t …” He took a deep breath to collect himself. “I had no clue what was happening to you, Iz. Magnus has been holding me together like a ball of strings while trying to figure it out. Neither of us has slept. I couldn’t …”

Izzy nodded. She didn’t like keeping things from their family, but she understood why Alec hadn’t called them yet. She knew he would have done it eventually.

“Where does the Clave think you are?” she asked.

“Intermittent Compliance Audit of the New York Institute.” Alec shrugged.

“That’s a thing?”

“It is now.”

“Great.”

“Don’t worry. You’ll pass.”

They shared a laugh that felt far too brittle. Nothing could change the fact that Raphael was dying in the hospital wing, and she had no idea what had happened to Simon. Isabelle sat up straighter, finger combed her hair back and released the breaks on the wheelchair. She gave Alec a nod and he opened the door and pushed her inside.

Meliorn sat next to Helen at the conference table, talking with her in hushed voices. Isabelle thought she heard him say, “You made your choice,” before they stopped abruptly and turned to look at her.

Helen got up first, relief and worry shining brightly in her eyes as she came over. It looked like she was going to bend down to hug Isabelle, but she hesitated when she reached the wheelchair.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” she said quietly before she slipped out the door.

“Isabelle.”

Meliorn rose from his chair with a strange expression on his face. Under any other circumstances, she would dig into it, but Isabelle only cared about one thing at the moment.

“You have a message from Simon?” 

“Yes,” Meliorn said. “He asked me to tell you that he loves you and that he had to stay behind to attempt to save Raphael’s soul. He thought you would understand, but if you didn’t, I was to tell you it was a ‘two momma tum-bean’ thing.”

“What?”

“He did not elaborate.”

Isabelle shook her head. Nothing of what Meliorn had said made any sense except that Simon loved her. What on Earth was he talking about?

The door behind her opened. She twisted her head to snarl at the unfortunate intruder until she realized it was Magnus. She nodded at him, and he quietly slipped into a chair beside Alec.

“I’m going to need a better explanation, Meliorn. What do you mean he had to try to save Raphael’s soul?”

Magnus stiffened in his chair. “You told us it was demon ichor and quiver-root.”

“It is.” Meliorn seemed unfazed. “Since the loss of his soul is not a medical issue, I thought it was irrelevant.” 

Isabelle was speechless. Magic erupted from Magnus in an aura of bright orange energy until Alec slid a hand down his forearm and linked their fingers on the table.

“It’s not irrelevant,” Alec stated calmly. “Tell us everything.”

While Meliorn relayed the whole story, Isabelle, Magnus, and Alec listened quietly.

“I could not convince him otherwise,” Meliorn finished.

“Yeah,” snarled Isabelle. “I bet you tried real hard.”

A strange look flitted through Meliorn’s narrowed eyes. He smirked. “My duty here is done. I would like to leave now.”

Isabelle nodded stiffly. When Meliorn passed her on his way to the door, she grabbed his arm with every bit of strength she could muster.

“When I check the entrance through the caves,” she said coldly, “I expect it to be unlocked and unwarded.”

Meliorn’s fingers felt burning hot against her cold, clammy hand. She hoped he wouldn’t pry off her grip as easily as she thought he might. When she looked up at his face, his expression was heartbroken.

“I might forget in my haste to get back to my troops.”

She nodded and let him go.

Alec was on top of her before the door had fully closed behind Meliorn. “Izzy, you can’t be serious.”

“I’m going after him.”

“Right now, you couldn’t go after anything. You can barely stand up on your feet.”

“I have to, Alec. Raphael is dying. Simon is literally going to a place worse than hell. I have to."

Alec’s eyes narrowed, and he planted himself in front of the door. “Good luck getting past me.”

“Don’t make me kick—"

“That’s enough.”

Magnus rose from his chair. He waved his arms with a flourish and snapped his fingers. All signs of exhaustion had been erased. His hair and makeup were immaculate. Dressed in a gold embroidered black overcoat, black leather pants, and snakeskin boots, radiating with magic, he looked at them with the yellow cat eyes of his demon father, Asmodeus.

“You are not going anywhere,” he told Isabelle. “You are done, and you will stay at Raphael’s bedside until I get back.”

“Magnus,” Alec raised his hands. “You haven’t slept in three days. I don’t think—”

“Do not argue with me, my love.” Magnus turned his cat eyes onto Alec. “I should have stopped this before it ever started.” He pulled Alec into a kiss that made Izzy blush and avert her eyes. “And when I get back, we’re having a serious conversation on the topic of children.”

Before Alec or Izzy could say anything, Magnus had opened a swirling red portal with a thrust of his hand and disappeared inside it.

Izzy was at a loss as she stared at the empty chair by the conference table after the portal had closed.

“Children?”


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  ** _Serious Warning_** : In the middle of this chapter, there are some traumatic mental images. They're just short sentences, but forewarned is forearmed because they are graphic in nature. Starting after Simon takes a dive, skip the sentences that start with "He was". 
> 
> Not so serious warning: Okay, so this chapter has some very mean-spirited Labyrinth bashing. I feel like I almost shouldn't have to say this, but obviously the views of the character do not necessarily reflect the views of the writer and are a product of the environment which the character finds himself in. Labyrinth is still an awesome fantasy and nothing could ever throw shade on the great David Bowie. 
> 
> This chapter also contains what I like to call "Dragon Dad" Magnus. It also contains a dragon, but that's not why Magnus is a dragon dad.
> 
> Enjoy.
> 
> ###### 

Simon gritted his teeth and took another agonizing step forward. Sarah didn’t know how good she’d had it. Her labyrinth was just tall hedges, crazy Muppets, and dizzy dreams of ballroom dancing with a hot guy in tights. Okay, there’d been that one part with the oubliette, but seriously, Simon could deal with grabby hands and a bog of eternal stench any day. That was just the New York City subway in summer.

Instead, he was forced to walk barefoot on broken glass between walls of burning coal. He had stopped breathing when the carbon-monoxide had started to burn his lungs. His skin was raw from the heat and he was honestly surprised he hadn’t caught fire yet.

At the end of this labyrinth was a volcano, and at the bottom of the volcano a dragon, and past the dragon was Simon’s Chamber of Secrets, his Temple of Doom, his Shangri-La, whatever the hell the place was called where the Erlking stashed away the souls of his victims.

He could do this. If he didn’t die on the way. No, he could do this.

He balled his fists tighter, digging his nails into his palms. The sting was nothing in comparison to the agony slicing through the soles of his feet, but it helped. Kind of.

_Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered,_ he thought mockingly. _Bitch, he barely made you work for it, and you had backup!_

Not that Muppet backup would do him any good in this situation. He almost wished he hadn’t given back Izzy’s bracelet. Just to have something to hold on to. He would never want her to go through anything like this.

Simon wished he could feel her, like Jace and Alec could feel each other through their parabatai bond. Then he would know for sure she was okay. He hoped she was with Raphael. He hoped they had found a way to counteract the demon ichor and quiver-root.

The memory of Raphael’s face when Simon had handed him over to Meliorn made him speed his step. He had no breath to scream, but his throat burned.

_Fucking Sarah and her fucking Muppets. Fucking Labyrinth and the motherFUCKING Erlking._

Simon let himself fantasize as he limped forward across the broken glass. He envisioned reaching Raphael just in time to rip him from the Erlking’s grasp. He saw himself grabbing a fistful of the greenish-black hair and tearing the bastard’s head clean off his neck before he ever got close enough to kiss Raphael. He imagined throwing the king’s head at the Seelies’ feet with Raphael in his other arm.

Simon smiled through the pain. He imagined Raphael coming to his senses and smacking him upside the head, demanding that Simon let him go. Raphael would have resorted to Spanish insults and profanity when Simon refused. He imagined looking at Raphael’s mouth, no trace of demon ichor or poison on his healthy flushed lips.

Simon would have kissed him. He would have put everything into it. It would have been like Indy and Marion in Raiders. No, more like Magnus and Alec when Magnus had crashed Alec’s first wedding. It would have been epic.

They would have gone home together.

Simon had no idea what to imagine once they stepped back into the mortal realm, but it would have been better than this. Anything was. He swore if he lived, no matter what happened to him, he would always remember he had done this.

The next time he and Izzy fought and he felt like things couldn’t be worse, he would remind himself he could be literally walking barefoot on broken glass between burning walls toward a volcano with a dragon instead.

The labyrinth eventually came to an end and Simon did breathe a sigh of relief when he stepped out of the burning maw into the gaping darkness of the volcano. The heat was somehow less intense, but the air was still thick with the smell of sulfur and smoke.

Simon sat down on the blackened ground, leaned against the volcanic rock, and pulled glass shards out of his feet. He watched as his skin slowly knitted together and healed. At least his vampire abilities hadn’t been taken away from him.

“I don’t suppose I can have my boots back now?” he hollered at the gaping exit of the labyrinth. Predictably, it didn’t respond and his boots did not reappear out of thin air. “Didn’t think so.”

When his boots had magically disappeared as soon as he had set foot inside the labyrinth, Simon had contemplated using his vamp speed. The risk of accidentally running into a burning wall and immolating himself had stopped that idea dead. 

He pulled himself onto his feet and checked that Magnus’s dagger was still tucked inside his waistband at the small of his back. The hilt felt impossibly cool when he touched it. Simon wrote it off as more magic crap that wasn’t helpful and soldiered on.

The volcano offered its own madhouse of horrors. As if the damn mountain knew him, it threw every one of Simon’s childhood fears at him, including snakes, clowns, and, of course, a rapidly moving paternoster elevator.

The door-less cabins moved almost too fast to see; the gap between the ground and the elevator was six feet wide across a rocky chasm that dropped hundreds of feet into a river of lava.

Simon shook like a leaf pressed against the back wall of the elevator as it rapidly descended toward the lava pit, but he cleared the jump both times.

At the bottom of the chasm, surrounded by a ring of lava, was a rocky platform. At the end of the platform rose the pitch-black mouth of yet another cave. Simon pulled the dagger from his waistband and got ready to face the dragon.

He felt like Harry Potter at the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Except, he didn’t get to rely on a magic wand or a flying broom. It became glaringly obvious how fictional heroes always had some big weapon or a lucky break to get them out of a sticky situation. Simon had nothing but a wavy suicide dagger and vampire abilities. Okay, so maybe he did have something.

_As long as I’m fast enough to stay away from the fire-breath_.

An ear-splitting roar reverberated off the rocky walls, ten times louder and more frightening than the epic T-Rex scream at the end of Jurassic Park.

“Okay, I’m dead.” Simon laughed nervously.

A gigantic ball of fire rolled out of the mouth of the cave. It unfurled enormous batwings made of white-hot flames and pushed a hulking body of fiery muscles out onto the platform. A hydra head on a snake neck stretched high into the air, spread its thorny hood, ripped open a flaming maw full of fiery fangs, and released another wall-shaking scream. The dragon was literally made of fire.

“I’m so dead,” Simon whispered, tightening his hold on the dagger. 

He took a shaky breath, planted his feet, and started to run at the dragon.

Everything happened in a split second.

Simon had almost reached the beast. A wall of fire spread before him. He felt the flames engulf him. Everything went white, then black.

Water roared in his ears as the pressure of a thousand tons of it crashed down around him. It knocked the wind out of him, dragged him high into the air, and slammed him into the ground.

He felt icy wind howl across his back and swell to a crescendo in a deafening explosion. Millions of shards of ice burst tinkling in every direction and rained down on Simon where he lay flat, face down on the platform.

When he dared to raise his head from the ground, the dragon was gone. Simon was surrounded by a mess of icy splinters that were quickly melting into the heated rock. He was not alone.

Magnus Bane was standing a few feet off to the side, doubled over with one hand braced on his knee, wiping blood from his nose with the other.

“Silly,” Magnus croaked, “did you honestly think you’d outrun it?”

Simon shrugged his shoulders and pulled himself onto his aching feet. It felt like he was missing layers of skin. He didn’t look down to check.

“I had to try,” he said. He could feel tears clog his throat and press against the corners of his eyes as he stepped up beside the warlock who had just saved his life. “Raphael’s soul…”

“I know,” Magnus said, “I know.”

When he clapped Simon on the shoulder, Simon almost buckled from the flare of pain that raced across his back.

“Sorry,” Magnus said, but he didn’t stop leaning on Simon, and Simon didn’t step away. He wrapped his arm around the other man’s back and offered him support as they started to walk toward the cave.

“You look like crap,” Simon commented as he saw the warlock’s face up close for the first time.

Magnus scoffed. “Yeah, it was either keep the glamour or save your silly ass, and I know which one Raphael prefers.” He trailed his sunken eyes once over Simon and cringed. “Besides, you look worse.” 

Simon coughed up a laugh. He was pretty sure one of his lungs wasn’t working right. “Don’t tell me.”

They shambled their way through the ink-black mouth of the cave into darkness. Magnus’s demon eyes glowed, assuring Simon that the warlock could see as well as any vamp.

The long, dark corridor eventually opened into a shallow cavern. Shimmering opal stalactites hung in tapered spirals from the low ceiling, reaching down to the surface of a crystal-clear lake. Below the water, reaching for their twins, stalagmites grew upwards in twisted spires.

Between the iridescent dark spikes swayed a mass of bright, swirling colors at the bottom of the lake. When he leaned closer, Simon could make out the distinct shapes of thousands of marbles, discarded in the depths like a pile of unwanted pearls. 

“Shit,” he breathed.

Meliorn hadn’t specified what Raphael’s soul would look like, and Simon hadn’t thought to ask. It had never occurred to him that he wouldn’t be able to recognize it. He had never thought for a moment that it might be something totally incongruous, so completely unlike Raphael that he couldn’t tell.

Magnus rolled his eyes. “What, did you think this would be like Ghost?”

Simon shook his head. He hadn’t thought at all. He licked his lips and stared determinedly into the writhing mass below the water. “How will I know?”

Magnus scoffed. “I’ll do it myself. Give me the dagger.”

“No.” Simon’s grip tightened around the hilt.

He knew bone-deep that Magnus couldn’t go down there. If he did, he wouldn’t come back up, and, between them, Magnus stood a better chance of making it back to the human realm in one piece.

“I’ll figure it out. Wait here.”

Simon held his breath and dove into the water. He could hear it as soon as he was submerged in the cold. A distorted warbling wail that traveled through the waves. The closer he drew to the bottom, the louder it got. Blurred images began to fill his mind, chasing each other out in an aimless frenzy.

His fingers brushed over the marbles. The wail exploded inside his mind.

He was hiding under the bed; a calloused hand grabbed his ankle and pulled him out.

He was holding a gun to his best friend’s forehead; a man said, “Kill or die.”

He was huddled in the corner of a room on fire; a bookcase crashed down in front of him.

He was squatting in agony beside the dirty seat in a toilet stall; blood gushed freely between his legs.

He was standing in the doorway, his pj bottoms soaked in pee; his parents lay dead on the kitchen floor.

He was hiding in a dumpster, covering his ears; gunshots echoed through the metal. 

He was freshly turned, terrified, and blind with hunger; his friends screamed as he tore into them.

As the horrific memory played out, Simon held on for dear life. His mind screamed at him as he ripped into the throats of his friends. He sucked them dry until there was nothing left and dropped their dead bodies like empty corn husks.

When it was over, it started again.

He was staring at the stucco ceiling of the Hotel Dumont, high on venom, mesmerized, as the vampire’s teeth burrowed deeper into his throat. His mouth tasted like copper pennies. Death was like falling asleep.

He clawed himself out of the grave and assaulted the monster who had turned him. He slew the bastard in cold blood, but then he turned on his friends. Their screams rang in his ears as he tore into them. Their bodies dropped like corn husks on the ground. He closed his eyes.

It started again.

He was staring at the stucco ceiling of the Hotel Dumont, high on venom, mesmerized, as the vampire’s teeth burrowed deeper into his throat. His mouth tasted like copper pennies. Death was like falling asleep.

He clawed himself out of the grave and bruising fingers grabbed him by the wrists. They tore him out of the dirt, against the dragging weight of it, up into the burning-hot air. A heavy hand cracked across his face.

“Breathe!”

Simon coughed out a bucketful of water and opened his eyes to the sight of Magnus Bane crouched over him, cat eyes glowing in the dark.

“I got it,” Simon rasped. His throat was raw. “I got it.”

He opened his hand to show Magnus. A shiny marble, tinted in cloudy swirls of red, white, and black, lay in the center of his palm. Magnus breathed a sigh of relief and closed Simon’s fingers over the marble.

“Time to go home.”

Simon didn’t tell Magnus what he had seen at the bottom of the lake. Now that he was out of the water, Raphael’s soul was quiet in his hand. Simon hoped that meant he was no longer reliving his worst memory. He tried to forget about the thousands of souls he was leaving behind as they shuffled back toward the cave entrance.

Magnus was unusually quiet. His labored breathing was loud in Simon’s ears and his heart thumped in an unsteady rhythm, like it was struggling to keep up.

“Look,” Magnus said. “I’m not going to lie. I can’t portal us all the way back.”

“I know.” Simon sighed, accepting that his ordeal wasn’t over yet. “How far can you get us?”

“Out of here. The other side of the labyrinth, maybe?”

Simon nodded. “Good enough.”

Magnus smirked. “Try not to barf?”

Simon wheezed out a laugh that turned into a wet cough. One of his lungs was definitely messed up and not healing right. “Jerk.”

Magnus sucked in a deep breath and thrust his hand forward in a rough, sloppy motion. A swirling gray portal opened and wobbled in the air. On the other side, barely visible, lay the barren landscape of the Unseelie territory.

They dragged each other through the portal and stumbled out on the other side just before it closed. Simon landed in a graceless heap on all fours, stomach heaving. He pressed his lips shut and tightened his fists around the marble and dagger in his hands, holding his breath against the urge to vomit up the blood of every Seelie soldier he had drained to get here.

“Daylighter, you are under arrest and will stand trial for the murder of seven Seelies and three bears.”

Simon groaned low in his throat. His fingers flexed around the dagger. He wondered how many he would have to kill before they let him go to save the rest.

Magnus’s hand landed heavily on his shoulder.

“I dispute the claim and will speak for the defense.”

The Seelies led Magnus and Simon to a snow-covered clearing not far from the entrance of the labyrinth. Magnus had taken his dagger from Simon before they could disarm him. Simon was still holding Raphael’s soul in the hollow of his fist.

They pushed Simon onto his knees and lit standing torches in a large circle around the clearing. A dozen heavily armed warriors took their seats on a couple of fallen logs, a court of jurors. Their leader was a towering man of solid muscle whose skin was so black it shone purple in the flickering light of the flames. He took his place at the center as the judge.

“Magnus Bane.” The Seelie leader sounded unimpressed. “A warlock has no business here. You only remain alive because the general has revoked the order to execute intruders on sight.”

Simon sat back on his aching haunches and looked up at Magnus. The warlock still looked like refried shit, but he was standing tall with a regal air, looking a bit like a prince from a tale of Arabian Nights in his long gold-embroidered overcoat.

“I am not here as the High Warlock of Alicante,” he said pompously. “I am here as heir to Asmodeus and the throne of Edom.”

A murmur went through the crowd. 

“Edom is gone,” said the Seelie in charge, but he didn’t sound very sure of it, “destroyed by heavenly fire.”

“She may be,” Magnus allowed, “but her ruler is still alive.” He spread his arms in a grand gesture. “And so are her armies at my command.” 

Simon half expected a squadron of demonic wyverns to appear out of thin air. Nothing happened, but the Seelies shifted uncomfortably on their seats and began to exchange nervous looks.

“What are you saying, Bane?” the judge asked sharply.

“You are at war, trying to determine the rightful ruler of the Seelie Realm, are you not?” Magnus asked with a flippant wiggle of his fingers. “This Daylighter is one of my soldiers.”

The Seelies gasped and recoiled in shock and disgust.

“You’re not Seelie,” the judge roared.

“I’m a king in want of a kingdom for his subjects,” Magnus threatened, “and yours will do just fine.”

Magic crackled in a bright crimson aura around Magnus. His demonic cat eyes never blinked as he held the judge’s furious gaze.

The judge narrowed his eyes. “If you declare war, we can kill both of you where you stand.”

“I would advise against it,” Magnus said calmly. “Unless you want my successor to lead hell’s armies straight here to follow through on my threat.”

The judge smiled. It was an expression full of sharp teeth and lacking any sense of mirth. 

“Are you offering a deal?” he asked greedily.

“Release the Daylighter. The soldiers he killed were enemies on the battlefield. As such, they cannot be treated as murder victims. In exchange, I offer you armistice.”

“Immunity for killing the Seelie warriors in exchange for an armistice with hell?” the judge clarified.

Magnus narrowed his eyes. Simon could tell something wasn’t right. It didn’t feel right, like there was a loophole he wasn’t seeing.

“And the bears,” Magnus added.

“Immunity for the death of the warriors and the bears,” the Judge amended. “Do you accept these terms?”

Simon exchanged a helpless look with Magnus. What other choice did they have? Even if the Seelies tricked them, as long as Magnus could get out of here with Raphael’s soul, Simon could live with that. Or die with that, as the case might be. He shrugged and nodded his assent.

“We accept.”

“Very well.” The judge’s smile widened and Simon knew that he was fucked. “Then that leaves the matter of the civilian Seelie woman he killed in the Treason Timber Grove.”

Magnus flared up with battle magic, but Simon exploded first.

“She kidnapped me! She dragged me from the mortal realm and tortured me!”

He got to his feet and pointed at his chest, unsure and uncaring how many of the wounds were still visible. He was tired of this courtroom drama, but if they wanted it, they could have it.

“She carved me up like a Thanksgiving turkey because I didn’t save your queen. She threatened someone I love, and then she sent him – a Mundane – to assassinate the Erlking, knowing he would die trying. She made him lose his soul!”

Magnus stepped up beside him. He was still surrounded by a thinning aura of crimson battle magic.

“This presents an interesting conundrum,” Magnus said and rested his hand on Simon’s shoulder. “If she was a civilian then she broke the Accords when she kidnapped the Daylighter and tortured him and, again, when she made an unsavory deal with a Mundane. Both offenses are punishable by death.”

Simon felt Magnus shift his weight onto him as the other man leaned on his shoulder. He gritted his teeth and stiffened his back to hold them both up. From the look on Magnus’s face, he was just casually resting a possessive hand on his soldier.

“On the other hand,” Magnus continued, “it sounds to me like the woman was a soldier in this war, since she was clearly acting on behalf of your queen and against the army of the Unseelie King.” He flapped his free hand in a careless gesture. “That would mean she is covered under our recent armistice agreement, the Daylighter is free to accompany me back to the mortal realm, nobody broke the Accords, and the Clave never needs to know that anything happened at all.”

The judge gnashed his teeth, his massive jaw working, as he stared them both down. Simon willed his knees not to buckle and held his breath, listening to Magnus’s erratic, fluttering heartbeat and shallow breathing. He wasn’t sure he could stay upright and support Magnus for another second when the Seelie leader finally opened his mouth.

“Agreed,” he snarled through his teeth. “The armistice stands. Take your Daylighter and leave.”

Magnus nodded and Simon almost dropped on his ass when the sense of relief rolled over him like a bulldozer.

The Seelies escorted them to the nearest entrance to the mortal realm and unceremoniously kicked them out.

When they collapsed on the wet, fragrant grass in the mundane world, it was still night. The sky above them was filled with wispy gray clouds, a waxing moon, and the orange haze of city lights.

Sprinklers came on all around them.

Magnus cursed a blue streak. Simon wheezed with laughter. They took a taxi back to the Institute.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so you know how at the top of the 2nd act in a movie or TV-show (or most stories that work off a 3 act structure) the heroes are in that really dark place where you think everything is lost and it can't get better? This is that part. (Chapter 18 and Chapter 19 specifically). I'm just going to need you to breathe through it and trust me.
> 
> ###### 

As they walked up the steps to the New York Institute, Magnus stopped Simon with the back of his fingers pressed against the center of Simon’s chest.

“When we get in there,” Magnus said slowly, “Let **_me_** tell Alec what transpired.”

“Yeah.” Simon nodded, shrugged. “Sure, whatever.”

Briefing the Inquisitor of the Clave had not even made it onto Simon’s list of priorities. Magnus could tell Alec whatever he wanted and Simon couldn’t have cared less.

“Right then.” Magnus nodded and dropped his hand. “Let’s go.”

Izzy was on top of them before they made it halfway down the long corridor at the entrance. Simon wrapped his arms around her lithe frame, buried his face in her long, messy hair, and held on tight. She smelled like warm cinnamon and chili. She smelled like home. Simon felt himself come apart at the seams.

“Iz,” he croaked.

“You’re here,” she breathed hot against the side of his neck and pressed a kiss there. “He’s here. You both came back.”

She pulled away and looked him over, keen brown eyes cataloging every injury, dismissing any blood that wasn’t his. There was a lot of it. Simon could feel shame run hot and oily down his back. He dropped his head. He’d never meant for her to see him like this again. Drenched in someone else’s blood. Like a monster. He was a monster.

“I’m—”

Izzy planted her cold hands on his cheeks and shut him up with a kiss. She nipped fiercely at his lips until he parted them and let her in. Her tongue laid claim to every inch of his mouth. When she pulled back, their lips parted with a soft wet sound. 

“You’re home.” Isabelle’s eyes burned into him as she held his gaze. “You’re safe.”

She squeezed him tightly one more time, grabbed his hand, and pulled him along. Simon looked around to see if Magnus was following them, but the warlock had already disappeared.

Isabelle stopped in front of one of the doors in the hospital wing, giving Simon his first opportunity to take a good look at her. What he saw stole the breath out of his lungs.

Her beautiful black hair was shot through with silvery-gray strands. The circles under her eyes ran so deep they almost touched the shadows in the gaunt hollows of her cheeks. Her hospital gown had come untied at the front, flashing a rash of bruises, abrasions, and burns that mottled her chest and extended to her arms and legs.

“Fuck,” he breathed. “Izzy, what happened?”

“It’s not important.” She quickly fixed her gown. “It’ll heal.”

They looked at each other, and Simon wondered if Izzy was as horrified by his injuries as he was by hers. He got his answer when they both burst out in awkward laughter at the same time.

“You look like a horror movie waif.”

“You’d make my students run screaming in terror.”

They hugged again. She flinched when he brushed a sore spot on her chest. He groaned when she made a nearly healed rib crack again. When they pulled back, she held on to his arms.

“It’s bad,” she said. “I mean, I know we look bad, but Raphael…”

Simon’s brows drew together. “Did you find something to deal with the poison?”

Izzy sighed. “They got rid of the demon ichor with holy water, but the quiver-root…” She pressed her lips together and shook her head.

Simon steeled himself. He tightened his fist around the small, hard marble of Raphael’s soul and let Izzy take his other hand. She linked their fingers and squeezed once before she reached out and pushed the door open.

Simon’s knees buckled. He forced them to lock up and walked stiffly into the room.

Raphael looked like he was already dead. He was buried in tubes and surrounded by dozens of machines that beeped and hissed and hummed loud enough to drive a sane man mad. His skin looked ashen and brittle. The rhythm of his breathing and heartbeat was all wrong.

“Shit,” Simon whispered as he stumbled forward.

He ended up bent over the side of the bed, petting Raphael’s hair, not sure if he was trying to fix the messy curls or just trying to touch him while he was still there.

“I’m sorry,” he rasped, staring at the nasty black veins that crawled from Raphael’s mouth all over his cheeks and down his neck. “I’m so sorry.”

How could he have fucked up so bad?

He looked over at Izzy. She had sat down on the other side of the bed and was gently cradling Raphael’s limp fingers in her hand.

“It’s not your fault,” she said firmly. “You didn’t do this to him.”

“If I hadn’t showed up at his church, he would never have gotten dragged into this. Fuck, if I hadn’t gotten between you two in the first place, none of us would be here.”

Isabelle flinched with a confused frown between her brows. “What are you talking about?”

Simon gave up trying to fix Raphael’s hair to drag a hand through his own messy curls and over his face. The stench of Seelie blood on his fingers made him want to barf. He pushed it down with all the disgust he was feeling at himself.

“Remember when you two were together?”

Isabelle’s eyes narrowed. “When I was getting high on Yin Fen,” she said mercilessly.

“That wasn’t all it was.” Simon raised his brows with a challenging look. “Anyway, one night, a couple nights after Max’s rune ceremony, I followed you.”

She tilted her head. “I don’t remember that.”

“I know you don’t.” Simon grinned. It felt like a grimace of pain. His eyes moved involuntarily down to Raphael’s face. “He made you forget after I nearly killed both of you in a fucking fledgling blood rush.”

A gasp from the hallway made both of them look up. Magnus and Alec were standing in the doorway, eyes wide as saucers at the snippet they’d overheard.

Isabelle raised her chin and glared at them. “Can you give us a minute? We’re having a **_private_** conversation.”

Magnus wrapped his hand around Alec’s tense forearm and quietly pulled him back. The door closed behind them and a shimmer of magic turned the lock. 

Isabelle took a deep breath through her nose and exhaled slowly through her mouth. Simon could hear her heart go from a fast, fluttering thump to a more steady, controlled drum beat.

“Obviously,” she said slowly, “we both lived.”

Simon nodded. “He made me forget too.” He crossed his arms in front of his chest and swallowed. Squeezed his eyes shut. “After we had sex.”

Isabelle sucked in another breath. Her heart was back to the mad, thumping gallop from a moment ago as she stared at him with a blank face. The thumping held out for a good thirty seconds before it finally calmed down. She still didn’t say anything.

He sighed. “I had no idea until last Monday.” He paused as he realized something. “If it was last Monday. I don’t know how long I was in the Seelie Realm. It felt like forever, and the sky never changed while that bitch was torturing me. What day is it, actually?”

“Sunday.” Izzy’s eyes flitted to the clock on the wall behind him. “Technically, Monday again.”

“Okay. Three days.” Simon nodded. He chuckled. “It felt a lot longer than that.”

“Simon.” Her voice trembled.

“I’m trying to come clean here, Iz.” His voice broke. “I’m trying, okay?”

She nodded.

“Anyway,” he said, and it felt like he was dragging himself right back over that broken glass in between the burning coal walls of the labyrinth. “You said something, Monday night – about getting what you need – and it all came back, so I confronted him. I went to the church, and I made a total ass of myself, and then I came back here and freaked you out because I’m a useless ball of insecurities—”

“Tuesday.” Izzy huffed out a laugh and rolled her eyes. “When you asked me if I would still love you if you killed someone and we fucked like the apocalypse was around the corner. **_That’s_** what it was about?”

Simon nodded. “In a nutshell.”

“By the Angel, Simon.” She dragged her hands through her hair and looked at the ceiling the same way she’d done the day she’d chewed him out in her office.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted reflexively, feeling the pressure at the corner of his eyes just before they started to blur red. “You have no idea how much. Because if it wasn’t for that, if it wasn’t for me, none of this would have happened, and Raphael would be fine. He’d be fine, and I’d be hopelessly in love with no one but you, and everything would be fucking sunshine and daisies and rainbow farting unicorns, but it’s not, because it happened, and I fucked up so bad and so many times that you’re going to hate me, and he’s gonna die, and he doesn’t even have his soul, because I fucked that up for him, too.”

He held out the red-white-black marble on his palm to show her.

“Oh, Simon.”

Izzy brushed her fingers over the marble. Then she curled her fingers around his, holding the precious orb between them. Her other hand was still cradled around Raphael’s. Simon wiped the tears off his face, cursing himself for being such a stupid, useless idiot.

“I have no idea how to put it back,” he admitted with a helpless shrug.

Izzy looked between him and Raphael. Her face crumpled like it did when she was about to cry, but then her forehead smoothed and she smiled. It wasn’t her happy smile. It was the determined one she put on whenever she had to do something that was going to hurt like a son of a bitch. Her eyes glistened when she met his gaze.

“Same way it came out,” she said flatly.

They both looked at the tube in Raphael’s mouth. The one that was breathing for him, keeping him alive.

If Simon’s heart was still beating, it would have stopped. Instead, it felt like a boulder in his chest was cracking down the middle. He looked from Raphael’s face back to Izzy and tried to keep it together. He didn’t even trust himself to open his mouth. How the fuck were they going to get through this?

Magnus would kill him.

Simon kind of wanted him to.

Izzy squeezed his and Raphael’s hands one more time and let go. She got up, straightened her hair, and walked to the door.

“I’m going to get Magnus and Alec. They should get to say their goodbyes first.” 

“Izzy,” he called after her.

“It’s okay,” she said as she turned around with her determined smile. “It’s okay, Simon. I love you. Both of you. This is what’s best.”

She looked so much like her mother in that moment, Simon was scared she would go on to say something like ‘The law is hard but it is the law’. Instead, her bottom lip started to wobble just a little bit and the spell was broken.

He nodded.

The door closed behind her and Simon was left alone with Raphael’s warm fingers in one hand and the hard marble of his soul in the other.

They came back before Simon had the chance to say or do anything. He stepped away from the bed, unable to meet Magnus’s eyes, and pressed himself as far against the wall as he could, wishing he could become invisible or disappear inside the wood paneling.

Alec didn’t say anything. He was there to support Magnus. Simon pretended not to hear as the warlock mumbled words too low for anyone else’s ears into Raphael’s hair and kissed his forehead.

When Magnus straightened up and turned around, Simon was prepared for anything. He squared his shoulders, ready to accept whatever the High Warlock of Alicante and Prince of Hell wanted to throw at him.

Magnus grabbed him by the back of the neck and pulled him into a crushing hug. The boulder in Simon’s chest cracked again, leaving nothing but rubble.

Magnus left, pressed tightly to Alec’s side. His husband carried his weight and held him together. Simon was infinitely glad and infinitely jealous at the same time. He looked at Izzy standing next to Raphael’s bed, ready to remove his breathing tube and turn off the machines.

Simon wanted to scream at her. He wanted to beg her not to do it. He wanted to drag her into his arms and hold on until he didn’t feel like he was being crushed to death by all this grief and guilt and shame.

“Ready?” she asked.

“No,” he answered honestly as he stepped up to the bed and took Raphael’s hand.

He remembered a night that felt like it had happened ages ago. He had been a vampire for maybe a few weeks. He had betrayed Raphael and released Camille from her prison to save Clary’s mother. Aldertree was threatening the entire New York Clan, so Raphael threatened Simon to make him find Camille and bring her to justice.

Simon had been on his way to see his mother; he couldn’t remember why. He did remember Raphael’s cold hand on the center of his chest and the diamond grid of the chain-link fence against his back.

_We are your family now._

_And what, I’m just supposed to forget my mom?_

_Your mom? Your mom will grow old while you stay the same. And eventually, she’ll be gone. Sooner or later, even your memories of her will fade whether you want them to or not._

_No. That won’t happen. Not to me._

_Keep telling yourself that._

Raphael had smiled a gloomy smile and disappeared into the night with a whoosh of displaced air.

Simon wasn’t ready to see those words come true. How could he ever be ready for this? His eyes met Izzy’s on the other side of the bed. The gray strands in her hair glared in the overhead light.

_Sooner or later, even your memories of her will fade whether you want them to or not._

“I can’t do this,” he whispered.

“Simon, please,” Izzy said plaintively. “We can’t let him go on like this. You know what it means to him.”

She didn’t wait for a response. She turned off the ventilation machine, leaned over Raphael, and removed the endotracheal tube from his throat; Raphael made a horrible gagging noise as it slid out. Isabelle wiped his mouth with a soft cloth and dropped the tube on a tray.

“Now, Simon,” she ordered.

He shoved the marble between his teeth and pressed his lips to Raphael’s.

It wasn’t epic. It wasn’t romantic. There was no swelling music, no angel choirs. Just Simon’s bloody tears falling on Raphael’s face, and Raphael’s lips slack against his, and a fucking marble in Simon’s mouth.

Nothing happened.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter includes one of those long-ass "previously on"s that you normally only get at the beginning of TV-show season premieres. Bear with me. I tried to cut it down but 7 or 8 decades is a lot to condense. 
> 
> Also, remember this is still the part where we hit bottom, but I promise there will be a happy ending.
> 
> ###### 

Simon cursed heaven and hell, the Shadow World and the Seelie Realm, and every damn dimension in between. He unsheathed his fangs and bit down. The marble cracked and burst into a thousand razor-thin shards, cutting his tongue as he pushed the pieces into Raphael’s mouth, willing the soul to return where it belonged.

It happened like a shock from an electric fence. Simon’s undead heart thumped for one solitary beat, like an angry fist to his solar plexus. Every single hair on his skin stood on end and his body hummed as decades of memories and emotions shoved their way inside.

Images and sensations flowed over each other, too fast to hold on to, too vivid to forget.

Mother’s kisses, sibling’s punches, scraped knees, and hugs, and blisters on his feet from running barefoot on hot asphalt.

A best friend’s laugh and a dangerous secret whispered behind a hand around his ear.

Sweet communion wafers and sips of sour-grape wine.

Fear like a deadly hand around his throat and courage like the solid warmth of a silver cross on his chest.

The Hotel Dumont. Death. Murder. Magnus. Camille. Mother’s funeral. His siblings growing older.

Years like calendar papers. Blood and death. The Accords. Valentine. War. Downworlders dying like flies.

More years. More calendar papers. The clan growing stronger. Taking responsibility as Camille played around. Watching, waiting.

Valentine’s return.

Simon saw their story play out through Raphael’s soul and felt every ounce of frustration, hope, anger, and pain he had caused. He learned all the things he hadn’t known. Raphael’s fear for the clan, his desperation to keep them safe.

He saw his own mother through Raphael’s eyes. Felt Raphael’s compassion as he poured beautiful lies and strong coffee into the drunk woman who was terrified for her “monkey”. Felt his anger flare over Simon’s stubborn attempt to play all angles.

He suffered the agony of being burned with concentrated UV rays, dragged himself to Magnus’s doorstep, and felt the relief when Raphael collapsed in the arms of his surrogate father. Raphael’s rage burned at the careless dismissal of his pain when Simon barged in.

He discovered his love for Isabelle all over again, different but just as deep and true. He felt the moment Raphael gave in to her plea for his bite for the first time and became addicted to her blood.

Raphael’s guilt crushed him as they faced each other next to a granite kitchen counter while Izzy suffered the pangs of withdrawal not ten feet away.

Shock and realization like someone had turned on all the lights inside him when they first kissed. Addiction and yearning and surrender. Penance in the form of a deadly bite.

Simon felt the agony of his fangs tearing into Raphael’s throat and the dizzying sensation of being drained to the brink of death.

Remorse and compassion and the stubborn determination to keep them all safe surged through him, giving Raphael the strength to do what needed to be done. Shame pulled like a lead weight around his neck, anyway.

The boathouse. Regret and longing. Surrender and bliss. Love on the tip of his tongue. Raphael choked it down and buried it under an Encanto he wished he could put on himself.

The memories rushed on. The Soul Sword. The battle at the Institute. A narrow escape from death. The loss of his clan members. The pain of breaking up with Isabelle. The flare of hope at seeing Simon in broad daylight, crushed by the disappointment of being denied the same grace. Heidi.

Heartbreak all over again when Isabelle arrested him in Detroit.

The Gard. Agony and redemption, standing in front of Simon in the waning sunlight. Human again.

_They gave me the greatest gift._

A bittersweet goodbye at Alec and Magnus’s wedding.

_Couldn’t have asked for a better man_.

He meant it. Love. Always.

A final meeting with the new leader of the New York Clan. Her pretty face distorted in anger.

_Fine, I promise. For you._

The seminary. Days like a string of rosary beads. Safety, salvation, peace for the first time in decades.

The church.

_Damnit, Raphael. You took my memories._

Simon felt the impact of his own voice, bitter and angry, condemning Raphael for his past misdeeds.

The park.

_The way I remember it_ , _you asked me to make you forget_.

_You shouldn’t have listened!_

_What would you have had me do instead?_

Compassion and longing and guilt and confusion jumbled up in a ball of white-hot light when their lips crashed together.

The bar. Raphael’s dark impulse to break the fragile white-green finger trailing over Simon’s arm. The stab of pain in Raphael’s chest at having his feelings dismissed with casual profanity.

Simon’s punch to the face was like getting hit by a train.

_Shit, look at me. How bad is it?_

Cold, gentle fingers cradled the back of his head. Simon stared into his own face twisted with concern and guilt, felt Raphael pull himself together just to take away that pain.

_It’s nothing. You punch like a fledgling._

Raphael forced himself to be calm and reasonable and witty while his body ached and his insides were a mess.

_I miss you._

Like a hand around Raphael’s heart, squeezing too tightly. Confession was supposed to be good for the soul but it shredded his into confetti.

If their past was water under the bridge, it was a bottomless lake waiting patiently for them to drown. 

The church again. Concern and confusion made Raphael fumble the books in his hands as Simon burst through the doors and rambled about them kissing in the boathouse.

The doppelganger.

_You’re not going to get away with this._

_What are you going to do? You’re just a useless mundane._

Fear like an angel blade to the heart, followed by cold determination. The image of Raphael holding a knife to Simon’s throat burned into Raphael’s eyes on an endless taxi ride to the Institute.

Isabelle flew into Raphael’s arms, bringing warmth and love and gratitude as he held her tight.

Planning, bickering, being left behind.

_You are a squishy, mortal human, and I am not going to lose you, too._

Izzy’s office. Helen Blackthorn.

_You really care about him, don’t you?_

_It’s complicated._

Worrying. Praying. Waiting.

Reading the first few chapters of Simon’s book, amused, appalled, and full of regrets at Simon’s version of Raphael Santiago. The baby vampire’s mixed feelings for his clan leader laid bare on every page.

Isabelle’s return crushed his hope and offered a new one. The familiar ease of bickering with a loved one. Relief when she agreed to see Meliorn together.

_Are you offering to wash my back?_

Bright hot embarrassment like a needle to the spine because a part of Raphael wanted it badly just to feel the comfort of her presence.

Juggling Isabelle and Meliorn was exasperating, but it delivered answers and a plan. 

_You can’t be serious._

_It’s the only way._

_I can’t lose you, too._

Magnus arrived with fluttering hands, bringing levity, love, and healing.

_Raphael, my boy. You really ought to write more._

That changed quickly. He dragged Raphael to Alicante, worried, pissed, and ready to refuse him.

_You are determined to do this._

_I am._

Simon felt Raphael’s fear and resolve as he stood on the bridge with Izzy, ready to jump into the Seelie Realm.

_Come back to me. Both of you. Come back to me._

Love and misery wrapped up in a fleeting kiss.

Anxiety before the jump and after. Hope compressed into the teardrop shape of Simon’s favorite guitar pick.

The faerie circle. The yellow warbler. The crows. The wasps. The swamp. Simon felt Raphael’s fear, pain, hope, faith, and determination.

Disbelief fought with exhaustion when Izzy’s bracelet turned into a snake and dragged Raphael to land. Exhaustion won.

Raphael woke up in another world; the picture-perfect future felt off like a wrong note in a major chord.

_This isn’t my first interfaith wedding, you know?_

_I know, I know. But it is mine, so I need it to be perfect._

_I promise it’ll be perfect._

Simon was almost relieved when the sky turned dark and the flowers withered, despite the discomfort of Raphael’s heart pounding in fear and shame.

_Take it._

_It’s okay. It’ll be our little secret._

Simon’s mind reeled as Raphael’s hidden desires drowned them all in blood and need and hunger. Love. Always. Death and Resurrection. Immortal. Together. Forever.

Raphael woke up under the shade of an aspen tree with Izzy’s bracelet wrapped snugly around his wrist and Simon’s guitar pick in his mouth.

Simon felt Raphael’s heart trip over beats when he found the impostor tied to the broad trunk of the treason timber. Bloody, beaten, burned, and carved to shreds, Simon’s body was a frightening sight to behold.

_My hero_.

Instant realization and rage like a mindless monster. Going for the kill.

Humiliation burned like acid when the impostor overpowered him easily and tied him to the tree. Wrath like fire in his throat at the twisted smirk on Simon’s bloody face. 

_Offer me a deal!_

A vicious kiss. A taunting laugh. Simon’s evil doppelganger spouting gleeful directions.

_He won’t be at all what you expect._

Raphael’s heart pounding like a drum as he marched on, unarmed and alone, into Unseelie territory.

Snatched up by a bronze rider, terror like ice under his skin, and dropped into the enemy camp.

_Kneel._

The Erlking, mesmerizing and wrong, another twisted version of Simon through Raphael’s eyes.

_And who might you be, pretty little mundane boy?_

Simon winced in sympathy as the bracelet – Izzy – snarled herself in twists and knots to take the shape of a protective muzzle.

_Well, this is interesting._

The twins. The snow globe ballroom.

_Dance!_

The Erlking’s tendrils snaking out to take possession. Izzy burst into flame and Simon and Raphael burned with her.

An unexpected interruption.

_Come, pretty little mundane boy. Let’s see what our riders have brought back from the hunt._

Meliorn on his knees with a sword at his neck. A female Seelie warrior next to him.

_Though I do not know my companion well, I am certain both of us only wish to serve you._

_You’ve proclaimed as much, yet how can we trust you?_

Apprehension like the king’s vines creeping under his shirt.

_No. Kill them both._

_Wait!_

Revolting seduction as a double-edged blade.

_Let me do this for you, my king_.

Relief at getting his way and wary conversation.

_Why are you here, Meliorn?_

_You heard what I said. I am here to join the king’s army._

_As a spy?_

Unwitting distraction and pain as Meliorn got too close to the muzzle. Too close to Izzy.

_I heard pure love could do magic, but I never saw it with my own eyes before._

Surprise. Refusal. Shame. Determination.

The conspiracy.

_I would slip it in his drink._

_I have a better idea._

Simon’s heart broke along with Raphael’s as he implored Izzy to let go. Raphael begged, threatened, cajoled, and finally tore her away from him, hurting both of them.

_I love you. I’m sorry._

He stepped willingly into the Erlking’s arms. Izzy curled flaccid around his hand. Blatant lies as a means to an end.

_They came here to warn you, my king. There is a plot to kill you._

_Tell me._

_I will, my king, but first …_

A slight of hand.

They kissed.

Blunt teeth cracked the pearl inside his mouth and spread the poison.

Like icy claws tearing their way down his throat and back up again, dragging his soul along.

The last thing he heard as he floated away was desperate, hopeless.

_What did you do?_

Simon resurfaced from Raphael’s memories to the sound of a continuous high-pitched tone. It took him far too long to realize that it was the heart monitor signaling that Raphael’s heart rhythm had flat-lined.

He looked up at Isabelle. She was hunched over in her chair, holding Raphael’s hand. Her face was wet with tears.

“Did you put it back?”

He nodded.

She nodded back, sniffled, and wiped one hand over her face, still holding on to Raphael with the other. 

When Isabelle stood up, Simon braced himself for her attack. He deserved it. This was his fault. The look on her face made him want to crawl into a dark hole and stay there until he starved to death.

Her expression crumpled again, but she wiped furiously at her face until the tears stayed back. Then she leaned over Raphael, combed her fingers through his hair, and gently pressed her lips against his mouth.

Isabelle froze.

Instantly, Simon was sure he had not returned all the pieces of Raphael’s soul and she had caught one. That would be just like him to fuck up even the very final thing he did for Raphael.

She pulled back and licked her lips.

“You bled.”

Her heartbeat kicked up, pounding exactly like Raphael’s when he had sealed his fatal deal with the Seelie bitch.

Simon snapped a hand to his mouth, acutely aware of the freshly healed cuts the soul shards had sliced into his tongue.

“Izzy, no.”

She straightened up and glared at him with fierce determination carved into every line of her face.

“He died with your blood in his system.”

As Izzy’s heart beat the war drum in her chest, Simon heard Meliorn’s words echo in his mind.

_Love in its purest form is nothing sweet or saintly. Undiluted by moral considerations, it’s a force that knows no limits, heeds no boundaries. It will cross every line, lay waste to any adversaries, in order to protect itself._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I borrowed the visual of touching an electric fence from Neil Gaiman’s beautiful The Ocean at the End of the Lane. Read it if you haven’t yet. It’ll break your heart but you’ll love it all the same.


	20. Chapter 20

Simon and Isabelle stared each other down across Raphael’s prone body on the bed. Neither of them had moved, and Raphael’s heart monitor was still making its continuous flat-line noise.

“Will you please turn that thing off before I smash it?” Simon uttered the words as calmly as he could.

Isabelle walked around the foot of Raphael’s bed, stepped up behind Simon, and turned off the heart monitor. She placed her hands on his bare back and rested her forehead between his shoulders.

“We can bring him back,” she whispered against his skin.

Every hair on Simon’s body stood up. He shook his head, taking shallow breaths to keep himself from yelling at her.

“I can’t do this to him, Izzy.” His voice trembled. “I can’t…”

He remembered touching Raphael’s soul in the Erlking’s hellish lake. Reliving his worst memory, over and over: turning into a monster; killing his friends.

Isabelle slung her arms around him. She turned her head. Her cheek pressed like a firebrand against his skin.

“I can’t let him go,” she confessed. “Can you?” 

“It goes against everything he want-ted.” Simon choked on the past tense. “You didn’t see him, Izzy. At the Gard. In the sunlight. He won’t accept going back into darkness. I can’t do this to him. Please.” He placed his hand over hers, laced their fingers together. “Don’t make me.”

Isabelle’s arms tightened and she took a long, shaky breath. Her heart still beat like a war drum in his ears.

“He doesn’t have to go back to that.”

She sounded ruthless and desperate like the night she had pulled Simon’s fangs toward the self-inflicted gash on her chest.

Simon froze. He didn’t know what she was thinking and he was afraid to find out. His mind was far too ready to supply him with the easiest option, the only option, to give Raphael the ability to walk in daylight as a vampire.

Izzy brushed her lips over his shoulder-blade. “I’ve collected a few bags of Jace’s blood in case he gets badly injured on a mission.” Simon’s breath of relief got stuck in his throat when she continued. “If that’s not enough, Jace is coming back from Philadelphia today.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Serious as a blade through the heart.”

Simon shook his head. He refused to let himself go there. This wasn’t going to end well. It couldn’t.

“Jace is never going to give up his blood to create another Daylighter.”

“He won’t have a choice,” she said resolutely.

Simon spun around and grabbed her arms, forcing Isabelle to look him in the face while she was spinning her poisonous fantasy. If she couldn’t even look at him, there was no way she was seriously going to make him go through with any of it. There was no point in torturing either of them with what ifs.

She met his gaze head on, eyes dark as coal and hard as flint.

“I’d do it myself,” she said, “but I’m in no condition to fight any time soon. You can be.”

“Izzy, no.”

“Yes.” She grabbed his face in both hands and looked at him like she was trying to put him under an Encanto. “I’m going to go grab the blood bags while you take a shower and get dressed. If the bags are not enough, you’ll drink my blood and get what we need from Jace while I take Raphael home. We’ll bury him in the little park up on the corner, and he’ll come back, drink Jace’s blood, and everything’s going to be fine.”

Simon tried to shake his head no, but Isabelle wouldn’t let him.

He sighed. “He’ll never forgive me.”

“You’ll have forever to make it up to him.”

He closed his eyes.

There was never really any other way this could have gone from the moment they realized Raphael had died with Simon’s blood inside him.

Simon went and took a shower in the bathroom of the Institute Head’s private living quarters. Izzy and he had gotten in the habit of stashing a few changes of clothes here for the nights they didn’t make it home to their apartment.

He put on a fresh pair of jeans and picked out a simple black T-shirt that had gotten mixed in with his clothes at some point.

Simon had to laugh at himself when he realized what he was holding. This particular shirt hadn’t ended up in his wardrobe by accident. It was the shirt he had borrowed from Raphael. After.

At the time, Simon had written it off as a laundromat accident. He’d never even questioned what had happened to the original shirt he had been wearing that night.

Simon pulled the shirt over his head, wrapped his arms around himself, and sat down on the bed.

He replayed the events of that night in his mind. He wondered how far he could have gone, at what point he would have had to change things to make them turn out right.

If he’d been able to resist Isabelle’s blood, would he and Raphael still have kissed? Would they have spent the night getting Isabelle through cold turkey detox?

Was there a universe somewhere in which Simon had made all the right choices and the sun had come up on the three of them safe, sober, and together?

Was there one where Raphael’s dark fantasy came true and they all ended up as vampires?

The door opened. Isabelle stepped inside with a determined look on her face. She had traded her hospital gown for a tight black long-sleeve top and a pair of skinny jeans. She closed the door and locked it behind her. Her free hand held up a medical cooler.

“Three pints,” she said. “Will that be enough?”

Simon had been close to death when Jace had rescued him from Valentine and let him drink his blood. He was pretty sure he’d taken more than that. They only had one chance.

“No.”

“All right,” Izzy said without hesitation, “then you’ll have to get the rest from Jace.”

She set the cooler down on the floor and opened it up. There were six blood bags resting on ice. Simon nearly lost it when she grabbed a couple of bags and chucked them at him.

“What are you doing?”

“My blood,” she explained. “If three pints aren’t enough, I’ll get you some straight from the source. I brought supplies.”

He reluctantly drained the bags as quickly as he could. It still tasted like her, still made him feel stronger, but it wasn’t the same as drinking straight from the vein. Like the difference between a fresh brew and coffee that had sat around long enough to go cold.

She tossed another bag on the mattress next to him and pulled a yellow rubber band out of the cooler. With one hand and her teeth, she made quick work of putting the tourniquet around her arm.

“No, Iz,” he protested with his teeth around the third bag. “You’re too weak.”

“Save it,” she shot back. “We have one chance to do this, and I’m not going to ruin it because I might get a little lightheaded.” She removed a needle from its sterile pack and stepped right in front of his face. “Now watch me closely. You have to get this right later, because you won’t get anything from Jace if you can’t find the vein.”

Simon expected his stomach to turn. Surprisingly, he was hyper-focused and completely calm as he watched Izzy tap her forearm and shove a needle inside her vein. She hooked a large collection tube to the end of the needle and released the tourniquet. Her dark red blood quickly filled the container. When it was completely full, she unhooked it from the needle and handed it to him.

“Drink up.” 

Simon took the tube from her hand and popped the sealed plastic cap. The scent hit his nose with the same effect as burying his face between Izzy’s legs when they were about to have sex. He groaned. Her blood was still warm. His eyes rolled back as it slid down his throat like sugar sweet cinnamon and chili, setting his brain on fire.

“Fuck.”

“Here.” She handed him another tube.

“Izzy.”

“And one more.”

He struggled to stay sane. He wasn’t a fledgling anymore, but that didn’t mean his control had no limits. Her blood was a drug. He couldn’t shoot up and stay sober. His senses went into overload as Izzy shoved the third vial past his lips.

Her scent was everywhere, drowning him. Her blood rushed through her veins like a torrent. Every beat of her heart was like a bass drum, amped up to 11, pumping out of gigantic subwoofers right next to him. It roared in his ears and pounded in his chest.

“Focus.” Her hand slapped across his cheek like a strike from a paddle. She grabbed his face and stared into his eyes. “I’m going to text Jace to meet you in the training room.”

Simon shook his head, trying to fight the effects of her blood in his system. He wanted to fuck her. He wanted to drain her. His hands had grabbed her hips and pulled her onto his lap before he’d even thought about it.

“No.” She smacked him across the cheek again. “No, Simon. Stay with me.” She snarled her fingers into his hair and yanked. “Look at me. I need you clear. For Raphael.”

Hearing his name hurt. Physically. Like a knife stuck deeply between the ribs and twisted for good measure.

“That’s right.” Izzy said. “I need you to go and get Jace’s blood. Do you remember how to do that?”

Simon didn’t trust himself to say anything. He held his breath to fight against the temptation of her scent and the painful, hard lump in his throat. He nodded.

“Good.” She pressed a quick, firm kiss to his mouth and climbed off his lap. “Here’s the supplies. You can hide them under a towel. Get to the training room. I’ll send Jace to meet you there as soon as possible.”

Simon made himself get up from the bed. He was amped up and ready to fight or fuck or gorge himself on blood until there was none left in a three-mile radius. 

“I love you.” Izzy’s words followed him out the door.

Simon paced the training room, batons in hand, like a caged animal until Jace finally showed up.

The blond looked tired. His mercurial eyes lacked their typical spark and he didn’t move with the same cocky grace that usually announced his sexual prowess to any potential partner within visual distance.

“Philly must have been rough,” Simon said by way of a greeting from across the room.

“It was a shit-show.” Jace shot back with a casual shrug. “Are you sure you want to train now? I could really use a shower and a few more hours of sleep.”

Despite the offer, Jace was already pulling his own set of wooden batons from the weapon rack.

“Sorry. It has to be now.”

Jace stopped abruptly, weapons at the ready, with a suspicious look on his face.

“Are you all right?” he asked. His expression changed and he looked downright uncomfortable. “When I got back, I heard a rumor we had Raphael Santiago in the hospital wing. Is that why—”

Simon couldn’t take it. “I need your blood, Jace.”

He was high on adrenaline, drugged out of his mind, and trying not to think about the fact that one of the two people he loved was dead in the hospital wing and the other one was going to steal his body and bury him to bring him back as a vampire.

Jace lowered his batons as he stared at Simon. “You’re kidding.”

“I’m really not.”

“It’s not happening, Simon.”

“I’m not taking ‘no’ for an answer.”

They clashed with the force of two colliding trains.

Simon slayed his demons as much as he was going after Jace. Ruthless. Relentless.

He bashed into the blond Shadowhunter like he was just another faceless opponent in the volcano getting in the way of what Simon needed.

Jace wasn’t holding back either. He was fast and accurate, trying to wear Simon down with constant body shots.

Simon couldn’t even feel the strikes that connected. Numb to pain. Focused on his goal. Unstoppable.

He took a hard strike to the ribs, heard them crack, swung around and swiped his batons, going for the back of Jace’s knees.

He missed, but the second Jace had both feet off the ground, Simon used his momentum against him, grabbed him with vampire speed, slammed him into the ground with the full force of his strength, and bashed both fists into Jace’s chest, fracturing his sternum.

Jace lay ghost pale on the ground, wheezing for breath, unable to move.

Simon left him there to grab the medical supplies. He came back quickly, crouched over Jace, and pressed his knee into Jace’s shoulder, holding him down.

“I never thought you had it in you.” Jace’s eyes were wet. He coughed up some of the precious blood Simon was after. “Why?”

“Don’t act like you don’t know,” Simon said calmly as he ripped open a sterile pack, tied off Jace’s arm with the yellow rubber, and pushed the needle into his vein. “There’s no line you wouldn’t cross for Clary.”

Jace dropped his head back on the ground and coughed, sucking in shallow breaths as he watched Simon hook up an empty IV bag to the plastic end of the needle. 

By the time the first bag was full, Jace’s eyes were rolling in his head.

“Does he feel the same?” His voice sounded rough and a bit slurred.

“Why does it matter?” Simon asked as he hooked up the second bag.

“Because you’ll never be able to show your face here again. Izzy’s never going to forgive you.”

Simon laughed. He shook his head and wiped a hand over his face. He was tempted to tell Jace exactly whose idea this had been, but he needed Izzy to be safe. If he was burned, so be it, but he wasn’t going to let Izzy go down with him.

“Love’s funny that way,” he said quietly. “Makes you capable of anything.”

They sat quietly for almost thirty minutes while Simon filled up four bags with Jace’s blood.

“Sorry it had to be this way,” Simon said as he packed the blood into the cooler.

Jace snorted. “No, you’re not.”

Simon wagged his brows once in a shrug. “For what it’s worth, you were a great trainer.”

He punched Jace hard enough to knock him out and walked away.


	21. Chapter 21

They buried Raphael in a shallow grave at the foot of an aspen tree. The little park near their apartment rarely saw any visitors after sunset, and any hobos who might show up looking for a bench would be blocked from view by a row of tall hedges.

Simon sat down on the cold grass and crossed his legs under him. Izzy snuggled close to him with her legs curled up beside her. He wrapped his arm around her back and she laced their fingers together where his hand rested on her hip. His other arm was braced on the white lid of the sterile cooler holding Jace’s blood.

They stared at the large patch of mucked up dirt and waited.

The silence was unbearable until Izzy broke it.

“When Meliorn gave me your message,” she said quietly, “he said that if I didn’t get it, what you were doing was a ‘two momma tum bean’ thing.” Simon started to chuckle before she’d even finished her question. “What the hell did he mean?”

He stifled his laugh against the crown of her head and kissed her there before he answered.

“I said it was an _Y Tu Mamá También_ thing.”

Isabelle pulled back and stared at him agape.

“What?” he asked defensively. “You know, it’s about two guys who love the same woman, but they also realize they love each other.”

Isabelle made the funny face that she always made when he said something really dumb and she thought he was being an adorable idiot.

“That is so not—” She cut herself off with an aborted laugh that came out like a sniff before she started again. “It’s definitely not a _Tu Mamá También_ thing. For starters, nobody is dying from cancer, and we’re not dealing with poverty and corruption in Mexico, and the Seelie Realm is hardly a road trip to the beach, and nobody’s breaking up with anybody, and Earth will reverse its rotation before I believe that Raphael slept with your mother.” She huffed in exasperation. “Did you even **_see_** the movie?”

Simon cringed. “I extrapolated from the trailer,” he admitted. “Hey, in my defense, it’s pretty much impossible to think of a movie that reflects our very particular situation.”

Isabelle laughed, shaking her head as she dropped it on Simon’s shoulder. “You’re a doofus.”

“You love me anyway.”

“I do.”

Her fingers tightened around his. Simon couldn’t believe how lucky he was. Despite everything, even though she knew what kind of monster he was, Isabelle still loved him. As it turned out, he might not be the only monster in their relationship. He was surprisingly okay with that.

Simon’s eyes were drawn to the patch of disturbed soil in front of them. He just hoped Raphael could find it in his heart to forgive them.

A hard fist punched through the dirt.

Simon jerked back, but his next move was forward to reach for the shaking fingers clawing their way through layers of earth. Isabelle threw both arms around his chest to keep him back.

“Wait!”

Simon let her hold him there, his back pressed against her chest, and watched in agony as Raphael fought his way out of his own grave for the second time in his life.

Raphael’s expression was pained as he pulled himself up. His eyes roamed aimlessly, wide and blind with hunger, searching for blood.

Simon reached for the cooler, but Raphael was too fast.

Izzy screamed.

Simon’s eyes squeezed shut as brutal claws sank into his chest.

An excruciating roar vibrated hot against the base of Simon’s throat.

Hard fists pushed him away.

Simon opened his eyes with a shuddering breath.

Raphael lay curled up on his side in the dirt, arms wrapped around his stomach, trembling from head to toe. His fangs glistened as he stared at Simon and Isabelle, gagging like he couldn’t breathe.

Simon fumbled with the lid on the cooler in his haste to get at the blood bags. He tossed three of them in front of Raphael.

Raphael’s eyes glared poisoned daggers at him, glistening with bloody tears. He pushed the bags away from himself.

Simon’s self-control was gone. He was crying like a baby, anxious, confused, furious and, of all things, starving. He didn’t care. He pushed the bags back at Raphael.

“Please,” he begged. “Please.”

Raphael curled his arms tighter around himself and closed his eyes, shaking his head.

“Raphael, look at me.”

Isabelle’s voice was cold and clear. Simon remembered the last time she had sounded like this. Remembered the look on her face. He was afraid to turn around.

“Look at me!”

Raphael’s eyes snapped open and he glared over Simon’s shoulder at Isabelle. His eyes went wide. He shook harder.

“If you don’t drink, you die, and I’m not going to let that happen.”

Simon knew without turning around what the ultimatum would be. He knew if he did turn around, he would see Isabelle holding a knife to her own throat. He could almost feel the edge of the blade on his skin.

“You have two choices,” Isabelle said calmly, “and neither one is easy. Bags or throat, Raphael. Which one is it going to be?”

Raphael reached for the first bag. His eyes never left Isabelle’s as he pulled it close and sank his fangs into it.

Simon collapsed in a useless puddle, listening to the sound of Raphael swallowing Jace’s blood. Above him, Izzy was still holding an angel blade to her own throat, sitting ramrod straight as she stared Raphael down.

She was the most terrifying thing Simon had ever seen. He loved her so much it hurt.

“All of them,” she ordered. “Simon, give him the rest of the bags.”

Simon hurried to get the bags out of the cooler and threw them to Raphael.

When he had finished drinking seven pints worth of Jace’s angel blood, Raphael’s eyes had regained their sharp, knowing gleam. He was in control and he looked pissed as hell.

“Is that enough?” His voice rasped like silk falling onto the cutting edge of a sharp blade. “Are you satisfied?”

“For now.” Izzy dropped the angel blade from her throat and put it away.

Raphael looked at both of them with anger, pain, and so much fucking disappointment, Simon was choking on it.

“Why?” he asked pointedly.

“Because we couldn’t—”

“I’m sorry.”

The words escaped and once they started there was no way to stop the rest from crashing out of Simon into the empty space between them.

“I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. I know you didn’t want this. I know. I felt it. I saw. I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t not do it. How could I fucking not? I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. There was no choice here. There was never any choice. And I know it’s all my fault. I know.”

He could feel himself start to hyperventilate but there was no slowing down. Everything just kept coming and coming and spilling out.

“I fucked up everything. Again. Over and over. It’s like I can’t help it. It’s like every time I see you, get close to you, I ruin your life, like I can’t even be in the same bar with you without breaking your teeth, and forget about trying to protect you, that just means I’m going to get you threatened at knife-point and dragged into the fucking Seelie realm of fucking sexual harassment and murder, and I am so, so sorry. If I could have traded my life for yours. If there was any other way, but I couldn’t let you die for me. I couldn’t let you die for anyone, anything, and then you died anyway and I—”

“Stop,” Izzy’s quiet voice was right in his ear. “It’s okay. Shhh. Breathe.”

Her arms around his chest collided with the runaway train of his thoughts. Simon sucked in breath after breath, trying to get himself to stop. It still wouldn’t stop.

“I can’t lose you. I’ll go back through hell every day for the rest of my life. Broken glass, burning walls, fire dragon, and the pit of doom. The whole nine yards. For you. For this. I know you hate me. I know you won’t forgive me. I know. It’s okay, I deserve it. I fucked everything up. I cost you everything. You can’t be human again. Can’t become a priest. Can’t do anything you wanted to do because I fucked it all up, but I just couldn’t do this any other way.”

He implored Raphael with his eyes, words finally running out as Simon stared at him, trapped in shallow, useless breaths that just kept getting shorter and shorter until he finally couldn’t get any air in at all.

Raphael looked him dead in the eyes. He sat completely still, but every muscle in his body screamed tension and his shoulders were pulled up like he was ready for a fight.

“Are you finished?” he asked very, very calmly.

Simon nodded his head. He couldn’t answer because he couldn’t breathe.

“You’re right,” Raphael said quietly with a hard expression on his face. “You fucked up. You fed me your blood before I died, and then you buried me without a stake in my heart.” His eyes burned intensely as he moved his gaze from Simon to Isabelle. “But you didn’t do that alone, and you didn’t hold a knife to the throat of someone I love.” His eyes moved to glare at Isabelle.

Simon wanted to protest, to protect Isabelle from Raphael’s wrath, but he couldn’t do anything but shake his head because he was still stuck with lungs that wouldn’t take in any air.

Isabelle held on to him tightly, rubbing his chest in small circles. He felt the stiff muscles in her arms as she held herself straight, felt her body shift when she raised her chin high.

“And I don’t regret it for a second,” she said. “You’re mine.” Her arms tightened around Simon. “And I’m not letting either of you go without a fight.”

Raphael’s mouth twitched. He shook his head and lowered his eyes. His brows crinkled and he snarled something under his breath before he looked back at them.

“I’m well aware of that,” he said. “As for everything else. Last I checked, I am still a fully functioning adult. I act on my own agency,” he growled the words between his fangs. “So, when I decide to go into the Seelie realm and do what needs to be done, up to and including bargaining with my own life to save yours, that’s my decision,” he stressed the words, pointing at himself, then at Simon. “not your fault.” 

He leaned forward, placed his hand over Isabelle’s on Simon’s chest and pushed. Hard.

“Now exhale, fool.”

It felt like all the air in the park whooshed out of Simon at once, and he could finally breathe again. He still didn’t trust himself to do it right, so he tried to match his breathing to Isabelle’s as much as he could, inhaling when she did, exhaling when she did.

“Sorry,” he mumbled stupidly.

Raphael sat back with his hands braced behind him, fingers clawing into the loose dirt of his grave. Simon wanted to reach out to him so badly, but at the same time, he was deathly afraid he would get his hand ripped off for the effort.

Raphael leaned his head back and looked at the sky above them. Then he sighed and looked back at Simon and Isabelle.

“I wouldn’t have been able to become a priest even if I had come out of this mess still human.”

“What?”

Isabelle and Simon had spoken at the same time.

Raphael chuckled. “I broke every single one of the ten commandments to get you back.”

Simon’s mouth dropped open in shock. He almost couldn’t believe it, but he already knew it was true. He had seen Raphael’s memories, and, while there might be a ton of differences between Judaism and Catholicism, the ten “big ones” were the same.

“But still,” he heard himself try to come up with an excuse.

“I would have to sincerely regret what I did and repent for those transgressions, and I can’t do that.” He pinned Simon with a look. “I don’t regret anything I did to save you.” Raphael sat up and wiped the grave dirt from his hands. “It was a test. He gave me a chance to find out where my heart truly lies. I made my choices. I’d do it again.” He looked down. “The only thing I feel bad about is the loss of my soul.”

Simon flinched. “I got that back.”

Raphael did a double take. “What?”

“I did,” he said with a jerky nod. “It’s there, I swear. I put it back myself.”

“He did,” Izzy said from behind him. “It was … He did.”

“I’m sorry that I broke it in the process.” Simon hung his head.

Raphael breathed out an exasperated laugh. “I think I told you before. Your relentless self-doubt is exasperating.” He looked down at the ground between his legs, uncomfortable. “You’re my choice.”

Simon remembered that particular train of thought. He had watched it pass through Raphael’s soul.

“Your ruin?” he reminded him.

Raphael’s gaze snapped up. Simon felt like he was tied to a tree again. Izzy’s arms around his chest didn’t help.

Raphael narrowed his eyes, took a deep, annoyed breath through his nose, and released a truly impressive stream of non-stop fast and furious Spanish that went on for way longer than it should be possible without pausing to take a breath.

It was the most Raphael had ever said for as long as Simon had known him, and for all that, Simon only understood a couple of Raphael’s favorite profanities and the words “idiot” and “inferno”.

When he was finally finished, Raphael looked him dead in the eye with his five-seconds-to-death-by-strangulation glare and said, deliberately, defiantly, “Te amo.”

Isabelle’s cheek was fiery hot against Simon’s temple and her heart was pounding like a trip hammer at his back. Of course, she was fluent in Spanish.

“He said—”

“I got it.” Simon patted her hand, never moving his gaze from Raphael’s death glare. He’d understood the last part. That was the only part that was important, really. “Te amo también.” 

“Di—” Raphael cleared his throat. Tried again. “Dio—” Ruthless. “Dio-os, save us. He’s learning Spanish.”

Isabelle chuckled in Simon’s ear. “He’s a slow learner. We’re still good for a while.”

“Hey,” Simon protested, “I resemble that remark.” 

She snickered and kissed his ear. He leaned into the gesture. Izzy’s heart was beating slow and steady now, her breath and blood whooshing calmly through her body. Simon let his senses drift from her to Raphael. He was breathing, but his heart was quiet, unmoving inside his chest. Simon missed the sound of it, but he would get used to the quiet.

“So, you forgive me?” he asked. “And you won’t leave us?”

Just because Raphael had said “I love you” that didn’t necessarily also mean “I forgive you” or “I’ll stay with you.”

“I forgive you.”

When Raphael lowered his gaze after he said it, Simon felt an uncomfortable weight settle in the middle of his chest. It was like he could feel what Raphael felt, like he knew what Raphael was thinking before he said it out loud. 

“But?” he challenged.

“But I am not going to live in darkness again.”


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it. Final chapter (there's just an epilogue after this). It's been a hell of a ride. I hope you enjoyed it. Let me know what you think.
> 
> ###### 

Isabelle’s heart tripped very loudly in excitement. Simon was staring at Raphael, forlorn and full of worry and doubt.

“You won’t have to,” she said quickly.

“We hope,” Simon added solemnly. 

Raphael cocked his head to the side. His body had been doing overtime for the entire conversation, and he was exhausted, and hungry for blood, and feeling entirely too many emotions, one of which was a fledgling sire bond to Simon which was probably going to kill him even before the sun came up.

“What did you do?” he asked, pinching the bridge of his nose in resignation.

“The blood you drank has a high level of pure angel blood,” Isabelle said proudly.

“I may have beaten up Jace to get it,” said Simon.

“Are you insane?” Raphael snapped. “The Clave is going to come after you. They’re going to kill you and de-rune Isabelle if not worse.”

There was an empty, cold feeling in his chest where his heart should be pounding, but Raphael could feel the fear like a hand gripping the back of his neck. He sucked in deep breaths and tried to push it down, willed himself to be calm and stop listening to the sire bond screaming in his blood and his jumbled feelings, all of it telling him to grab these two idiots and run as fast and as far as they could. 

“Raphael, calm down, it’s going to be okay.”

Simon’s eyes were on him and Simon’s hand was around his wrist, holding him steady, grounding him like a fucking anchor to reality. Raphael wanted to punch him, kiss him, and then punch him again for putting him through this.

“They don’t know Isabelle is involved,” Simon said quickly. “She can go back and be fine, and you’re just the victim here. You didn’t do anything wrong. You’ll be fine. It’s all on me, okay? It’s fine. I can take it.”

“I’m not going back,” Isabelle protested.

“Yes, you are.”

Who knew that Simon Lewis could be dominant?

Raphael felt himself smile, wiped a hand over his mouth to hide it, and cleared his throat.

“Simon’s right,” he said, forcing the words through his teeth. “If you can be safe and keep your position at the Institute, it’ll help to protect him.”

“And you,” Simon growled in the same irrefutable tone. “It’ll protect both of us, Raphael.”

He relented, reluctantly dropping the discussion, for now. Damn sire bond.

“But for that to work,” Raphael said pointedly, “she needs to get back to the Institute as soon as possible.” He looked at Isabelle again. “You may have already been gone too long.”

“I’m not leaving you,” Isabelle said again.

“Woman,” said Simon, and Raphael almost laughed, because the next second Isabelle had already smacked Simon upside the head, hard.

“Don’t you ever ‘Woman’ me again,” she snarled with a finger pointed at his nonplussed face. “What do you think this is, the sixties?”

Simon shook it off and turned around, moving out of her arms to look at her. The expression on his face was a mixture of contrition, frustration, fear, worry, and love muddled up in a ball of insecurity that somehow managed to result in courage.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m just very tense right now and there are like a million different feelings screaming in my head very loudly and it’s a bit much and I’m just trying to keep you both safe.”

Simon had yet to take his hand off of Raphael’s wrist. Clearly, the sire bond was affecting him too, and he probably had no idea it was even happening.

“It’d probably help if you let me go,” Raphael suggested quietly.

“No.”

The refusal came down through the bond like an avalanche from the mountain top.

“I meant,” Raphael clarified, “let go of my wrist.”

“N—” Simon stopped himself. “Okay, yeah.”

It still took him a moment to actually release Raphael’s wrist from his grip.

Raphael pulled himself together as much as was possible while wearing what looked like hospital scrubs. He took a deep breath and looked at Isabelle.

“Isabelle, querida, I need you to go back to the Institute. Try to smooth things over with Jace. Act like you’re pissed with Simon. Make Jace believe you had nothing to do with this. Try to keep him from going to the Clave with it. Can you do that?”

Isabelle didn’t look happy, but she nodded. Raphael leaned forward, pressed a quick kiss to her pouting lips, and touched their foreheads together.

“Thank you.”

Part of the thank you was for not having to put her under an Encanto to do as he asked. Raphael wasn’t sure he would have had it in him right now.

Simon snorted. “‘Course she listens to you.”

“Don’t sulk,” Raphael said glibly.

Isabelle smiled and ducked her head to kiss Simon.

“I love you,” she said, combing her fingers through Simon’s messy mop of hair. “How will I find you?”

Simon raised his shoulders in a helpless shrug, clearly still overwhelmed and without a plan. Raphael opened his mouth to offer the solution, but before he could say it, Simon voiced his thought.

“The Dumort?” he said blankly before he turned to look at Raphael as if Raphael had spoken out loud. “Yeah. The Dumort.”

“Okay,” said Isabelle and got up from the ground. “I’ll meet you there as soon as I can.”

She straightened her shirt and ran her hands through her hair. That was when Raphael noticed she had developed more than a few strands of gray since he’d last seen her. They would have a conversation about that, later.

He stopped himself. They wouldn’t. He had meant it. He was not going back into the darkness. One way or the other, he would watch the sun come up in the morning. His internal clock told him sunrise was only a couple hours away.

“Isabelle?” he called after her.

She looked back and he purposely said his goodbyes in Spanish. He told her not to worry about him, to take care of herself, and to remember he would always love her.

Isabelle froze. “Don’t say it like that.”

“How would you like me to say it?”

Simon’s hand was back around his wrist, squeezing a little too hard.

“For starters,” he said heatedly, “you could make it sound less like goodbye.”

Raphael closed his eyes and moved through the barrage of emotions coming his way with a few calming breaths. Then he pasted a grin on his face that didn’t go more than skin deep.

“Hasta la vista, baby.” He even imitated the terrible Austrian accent. “That better?”

“I hate you.”

That wasn’t what came down the bond, though. Raphael forced himself to pull his hand out of Simon’s grip and got up from the ground.

“Let’s go,” he said, brushing the dirt off his scrubs. “We don’t have a lot of time before sunrise.”

The Hotel Dumort had not changed in the past year. The exterior was still covered in particle board and as uninviting as it could be to mundane eyes without running the risk of being demolished for a new development. 

Raphael and Simon made it all the way to the fire exit in the back before they were surrounded by clan members.

“My, my, my, what have we here.” Eloise’s voice was as grating as it had always been. “Two lost little lambs.”

Raphael turned around and bestowed her with his most unimpressed look, fangs on full display.

“Really, Eloise?”

“Ra-ra-buh—” She dithered as she pointed at him. “Huh?”

“Yes, it’s me.” Raphael smiled. “Anything else you want to say?”

Eloise made a high-pitched sound of glee and bounced on her feet, making her curly blonde hair bounce around her head. Then she disappeared in a burst of vampire speed. The rest of the guard vampires retreated with looks of confusion. Raphael felt a pang of concern that he didn’t recognize their faces.

“Okay, that was weird,” Simon muttered over his shoulder.

Raphael hummed his agreement. He could feel Simon’s nerves get the better of him as they stepped inside the hotel and started to make their way up to the penthouse.

“Stop fidgeting,” Raphael growled.

“Yeah,” said Simon, “see the thing is, I’m not exactly welcome here. I’ve been working with the Shadowhunters, and I’m dating the head of the New York Institute, which is a big no-no, apparently.”

Raphael looked at him with every ounce of authority he could muster, fighting the effect of Simon’s chaotic feelings on his own state of mind all the way.

“Then you better hope my name still carries weight around here.”

“Raphael?”

The surprise rang clear as a bell in the resonant alto voice. 

Lily Chen stood at the top of the stairs, looking down at them with her slender black brows crinkled in disbelief. Her almond shaped eyes were wide as saucers in the second before she disappeared into thin air and reappeared less than a foot away from Raphael. Her pale hand hovered in front of him as if she were afraid to touch him.

“You’re back?” she said, full of hope.

“Not for long,” he replied and grasped her reaching hand before it could make contact with his face.

He watched her heart break in the way her pretty oval face crumpled and reassembled itself into a resolute expression. She was the leader of the clan now. It wouldn’t do to show weakness.

“I tried to keep my promise,” she said, her eyes flitting over Simon for an instant.

“I know.” He smiled. “I need you to keep trying.”

“For you.”

“Okay, what am I missing here?”

Simon’s tone was sharp and there was a noticeable streak of jealousy in the emotions coming off him as he placed his hand on Raphael’s shoulder.

“Oh, nothing much, Daylighter,” said Lily with a saucy smile on her face.

Raphael glared at her in warning, but apparently his influence had lost its full potential. Maybe she was just too angry at him for refusing to return home and resume the position of clan leader.

“I just promised Raphael here when he left us to be a squishy Mundane that I would look after his pet monkey,” she rolled the words over her tongue with gusto.

At first, Simon clearly didn’t comprehend. His brows furrowed and his whole face screwed up in confusion. Raphael could feel the moment the penny dropped. Simon’s eyes widened comically. Raphael closed his in embarrassment. 

“You,” Simon said. “She.” He gasped for breath. “That.”

Despite the incoherent utterances, Raphael knew exactly what Simon was trying to say. He could feel it, loud and clear, through the bond. For a simple sire bond, the connection was incredibly strong. Camille had never told him it could be like that.

Simon was embarrassed for his childhood nickname. He was pissed that Lily was teasing him with it, but grateful that her promise to Raphael had caused her to save his life during his fight with the warlock from Queens. He was touched that Raphael had bothered to remember and sad that he would never be called that again because Simon’s mother thought he was dead. Mostly he was all over the place.

Raphael smirked. “Calm down, monkey.”

Lily snickered, but she sobered quickly. “So, why are you here, Raphael?”

“I was hoping I could borrow your rooftop terrace,” he said and, after a glance down at the scrubs, added, “maybe a decent outfit if it’s not too much trouble.”

Lily stared at him hard. Her delicate jaw flexed several times. Finally, she swept an arm up in the direction of the penthouse.

“Go ahead.”

Raphael showed his gratitude with a genuine smile and a quick squeeze to her fingers. As he walked up the steps with Simon at his side, Lily’s voice resonated after them strong and uncompromising.

“This is still your home.”

He stopped and turned around to look at her. There were a thousand things he could say, most of them he’d already told her the last time they had said their goodbyes. The only thing he really had to say now was not something Lily would want to hear.

“Isabelle Lightwood will come here looking for us. When she does, make sure nobody lays a finger on her.” 

Lily’s eyes went wide and then very, very narrow. Her hands balled into fists and she swallowed thickly, her cherry lips pressed in a thin line as she stared at both of them.

“Understood,” she ground the word out through her fangs. 

The closet in the penthouse was still full of Raphael’s clothes. Lily had kept everything. Her own outfits were relegated to one corner of the spacious room. Raphael shook his head. His hand passed over his favorite suit. He paused.

He remembered seeing his doppelganger wear the same suit, holding a poisoned knife to Simon’s throat. Mocking him. Taking Simon away and disappearing into thin air.

Raphael pulled the suit off the rod and dropped it on the floor with the discarded scrubs.

He ended up dressed in black chino slacks and a soft cashmere sweater over one of his simple cotton T-shirts. Nothing Dolce. It would be a waste to burn it.

When he came out of the closet, Simon was pacing the room and fidgeting like a nervous monkey.

“You can have everything you want in there,” Raphael said, pointing back to the closet. “Except what’s on the floor. Burn that.” 

“I don’t want your fucking clothes.”

Simon’s glare weighed a metric ton. Raphael squared his shoulders and held it.

“Suit yourself.”

He managed a casual shrug and walked past Simon out onto the rooftop terrace. He wasn’t surprised when Simon followed on his heels.

Raphael sat down with his back against the brick wall, facing east. He could feel sunrise coming like the fatigue and aching muscles before a bad case of the flu. It wouldn’t be long now.

Simon sat down right beside him, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, his legs stretched out beside Raphael’s. Simon’s anger and his stubborn refusal to let him go crawled like hives through Raphael’s mind. When Simon moved to take his hand, he lost it.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” 

Simon released a shaky breath. His whole body was vibrating with anxiety. He could barely keep his fangs in check. He hoisted himself up and over, straddled Raphael’s legs, and dropped his weight on Raphael’s thighs.

Raphael was too stunned to move, struggling to keep his and Simon’s emotions separated and under control. He failed.

The last time Simon had sat on Raphael’s lap, he had been high on Isabelle’s blood. He’d barely been aware of his actions, driven by hunger and arousal.

This was nothing like that. For one, they were both stone cold sober, and with all the other emotions flooding them, hunger and arousal barely made the list.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” he snapped.

His intentions were clear. If Simon had to literally sit on Raphael to get his point across, then so be it.

Raphael narrowed his eyes. “Get off me.”

“No.”

Raphael grabbed Simon’s arms and twisted his hips to dislodge him, but Simon tensed his legs and sat tight, riding it out.

“Simon, if you don’t move, I swear—”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“If I catch fire and you’re still touching me—” 

“Then we burn.”

Raphael couldn’t believe the stupid, stubborn, reckless, infuriating monkey! If he didn’t love him so much, he would … Had it even occurred to him what would happen if they both turned to ash on this rooftop?

He could feel his emotions roll through Simon like a tidal wave and come back at him with the same intensity.

Raphael’s brows drew together. Simon’s jaw tightened and shifted forward. There was the tell-tale twitch under Raphael’s eye as they glared at each other.

“And what about Isabelle?”

Raphael raised his brows and cocked his head in the way he always did when he had to point out Simon was being exceptionally dense about something.

Simon shrugged. “She’ll just have to bring us back.”

Simon believed in it bone deep. Raphael could feel it. He still sniffed derisively.

“You’re crazy.”

He forced his expression to relax, but he knew Simon could feel his worry, his despair, his hope, his anger, everything.

It was driving Simon crazy and making him feel a little giddy, to be honest.

“That woman loves us so much, she threw herself into a coma and manifested spontaneous magic. Do you honestly think she wouldn’t find us and bring us back from wherever it is we go when we burn?” 

“Simon.”

“Just choose us,” Simon whispered, letting gravity take him down until their foreheads touched. He curled his hands around the back of Raphael’s neck, cold fingers raising the hair at Raphael’s nape. “Choose me. Just one more time.”

It was right there, at the edges of everything. Around all the frustration and fear and doubt and all the other crap that made it hard to breathe and impossible to think straight.

Love. Always.

Raphael closed his eyes and curled his fist around Simon’s shirt at the center of his chest. He tugged.

Their lips touched on an unsteady breath. Light flared between them and burned brighter than ever before.

Neither of them noticed when the sun rose above the bricks and flooded the rooftop in brilliant shades of red, and orange, and yellow.

The End.


	23. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't resist. Sorry for any cavities this may cause.
> 
> ###### 

Several Years Later

The room was unmistakably a kid’s chaotic empire. Colorful posters of animals, athletes, and superheroes covered the walls; toys and clothes spread out willy-nilly everywhere, spilling out of shelves and drawers. Wonder Woman was hitching a ride on the roof of Optimus Prime’s semi-trailer. A pile of T-shirts and silly socks had grown tall enough to reach the handle of the half-open closet door in the corner.

The emperor himself was holed up in a mountain of blankets on the twin bed in the middle of his territory.

A hacking cough shook his small body, followed by a sneeze that came out so loud and hard, it messed up his fiery mop of hair and covered his arm in a disgusting layer of snot. He jumped out of his blankets and stood straight up on the mattress.

“Ew. Mo-om!” 

The person who poked their head through the door a minute later was tall, sparkly, sometimes scary, and definitely not Mom. Yellow cat eyes flashed at the emperor when they saw him out of bed and a long finger tipped with black nail polish pointed at the blankets muddled around the emperor’s feet.

“You better get your butt right back in there, Stevie, my boy, or I’ll curse it stuck to the sheets.”

“You wouldn,” Stevie challenged. “B’sides, I got snot all over me—ee—ehtchoo.”

He sneezed another explosive snot fountain and screwed up his face in misery and disgust.

“Gross.”

Uncle Magnus gagged, snapped his fingers, and wiggled them in a quick flutter, banishing the nasty snot to oblivion. Then he swooped Stevie up under his armpits, laid him back in bed, and pulled the blankets up to his ears.

“I don’t know why your mother insists you have to go through this,” he grumbled as he tucked the blanket around Stevie, turning him into a blanket mummy. Stevie giggled and wiggled against the tickling fingers.

“She says it’s for my character.”

“I’ve never been sick a day in my life. Does it look like I lack character?” 

Stevie shook his head. His Uncle Magnus was a real-life superhero warlock. He could do anything. He could even make his hair go gray when it wasn’t supposed to be so that it matched his Uncle Alec’s.

“And if it’s her idea to build your character,” Uncle Magnus continued to grumble, “why’s she still in the living room having wine and cheese with your daddy and Uncle Alec while Uncle Magnus has to come and check on you?”

Stevie bit his lip. He knew the answer, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to tell Uncle Magnus. Mom said Uncle Magnus was a hopeless sucker. She said it every time Stevie came back from visiting his uncles in Alicante and brought home more toys for his empire.

“All right,” said Uncle Magnus. “You good?”

Stevie pouted and tried to think of anything to make his uncle stick around. He didn’t want to be alone. He was pretty sure the next sneeze was just lurking in a corner, waiting to get him and cover him in snot again, and Uncle Magnus was the only one who could make it go away with a snap of his fingers.

“Will you tell me a story?” Stevie asked desperately.

“A story?”

Uncle Magnus sat down heavily on the edge of the bed and huffed out a breath. He thought for a long time and tapped his fingers against his black and gray beard, making the silver rings on them sparkle.

“I suppose I could,” he said slowly as a smile curled up his lips. “But you can’t tell your father.”

Stevie was immediately intrigued. Anything that his dad couldn’t know about was bound to be good. His dad was a stickler for keeping Stevie away from all things violent or bad. Mom said it was a hang-up to do with Stevie’s evil grandfather. He-who-must-not-be-named. Like Voldemort.

“Does it have blood in it?” he asked Uncle Magnus quietly, excitedly.

“Loads,” Uncle Magnus promised. “Blood and violence. Kidnapping. Torture. Revenge. Monsters. Chases. Narrow Escapes. Pure love. Miracles.”

“Wait.” Stevie pinched up his face. “You’re not going to tell me The Princess Bride, are you? I’ve got that on my phone.”

“Oh, no, Stevie, my boy.” Uncle Magnus grinned. “This story is different. More blood, no rodents, and best of all: it’s actually, really true.”

“Whoa.”

“Yeah,” Uncle Magnus said with a knowing nod. “But!” He held out a conspiratorial pinky. “You have to swear never to tell your dad I told you this story, promise?”

“Promise.” Stevie hooked his pinky into his uncle’s and sealed the pinky promise.

“Okay, move over.”

Uncle Magnus pushed him over to make room, making Stevie giggle again, and turned around to settle comfortably against the headboard with Stevie tucked against his side.

“This is the story of two vampires and their Shadowhunter,” Uncle Magnus began, sweeping his hand in the air in front of them. “A trio of gorgeous people who went through hell and back to fight for their love.”

Stevie looked up at his uncle with a confused frown. “All three?”

Uncle Magnus nodded. “All three.”

Stevie accepted the response with a nod and settled back into his uncle’s side. Now that Stevie had him where he wanted him, he was happy.

“Our story starts many years ago, when your mommy and daddy had not been married yet. Your mommy was in Alicante, learning to become a proper Shadowhunter, and your daddy was going on dangerous missions all over the continent, fighting demons and monsters.”

“Wait!” Stevie stopped his uncle again with a hand on his sparkly shirt. “This is not a story about mom and dad is it?” He wrinkled his nose in disgust.

Magnus chuckled. “No, sweetie. I wouldn’t do that to you. It’s not about them. I promise your dad is barely a blip in it.”

“Okay.” Stevie settled down again.

“Where was I?” asked Uncle Magnus. “Oh, right. The New York Institute, at the time, was headed by a fierce, beautiful woman, a Shadowhunter with skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as ebony.”

“One more thing!” Stevie stopped him again.

“Yes?”

Uncle Magnus was still smiling, but his brows were furrowed and he was giving Stevie the cat-eyes again.

“It has a happy ending, right?” Stevie confirmed, his fist grasping at his uncle’s sparkly shirt.

The cat-eyes disappeared and the smile on Uncle Magnus’s face brightened. His dark brown eyes sparkled with mirth as he nodded firmly.

“Of course, my boy,” he said. “The best kind. Where they live happily ever after, and still do, to this very day.”


End file.
